African Spirituality, Politics, and Knowledge Systems

Sacred Words and Holy Realms

Toyin Falola

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781350271968
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

Focusing on the three leading religious traditions in Africa (African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity), this book shows how belief in the supremacy of sacred words compels actions and influences practices in contemporary Africa. "Sacred words" are taken to mean holy texts as in divination, the Quran and the Bible. Toyin Falola evaluates how religious leaders engage with sacred words, both orals and texts, engendering practices that reveal the expression of religious beliefs, the impact of those beliefs, and the knowledge contained in them. Attention is given to the key ideas in the words chosen by religious leaders, and how they form a continuous knowledge system, impacting the politics of managing society and people.

Part One

Indigenous Systems

1

Diviners and Indigenous Knowledge

Introduction

In a fast-growing world of innovations, technological advancements, and scientific discoveries, knowledge is primary. As naturally curious creatures, humans search for knowledge in different places, and each day comes with a new addition to their knowledge base, through which they impact the world in different ways. Knowledge is desired by many for a variety of reasons, including the ability to impact lives and change the course of events, such as determining the right action in a crucial moment. Knowledge is often bequeathed with the seat of power, as Sir Francis Bacon rightly observes: “Scientia potentia est” (knowledge is power). To say that may not be too presumptuous, considering the wealth of knowledge that can be channeled to greater courses for humanity’s sake. Humans are classified scientifically as “homo sapiens,” which literally translates as “humans with knowledge,” distinguishing them from other organisms. The quest for knowledge is encoded in the genetic makeup of humans, so much that they may go to any length to acquire it. That insatiable hunger and zeal for knowledge have had a significant impact on different aspects of the world.

Among the rest of the world, Africans have contributed and are still contributing a great number of their resources to the production of knowledge, maintenance, and growth of the different systems of the world. Scientists, physicians, astronauts, engineers, and many others have been praised for their inventions and innovative ideas of knowledge. Many of them have even been recognized with prizes and awards for their works and contributions to human knowledge. However, diviners have received little or no recognition for the generation, that is origination and possession of ideas and knowledge, and most of the time they are not perceived as experts or even worthy of study because their works and expertise are not categorized as “professional” and do not fit in with Western concepts of knowledge and innovation.

This chapter attempts to examine diviners as experts in their fields and also as a critical cohort of authorities deserving of extensive study alongside professional recognition for their contributions toward humanity and the possession and generation of ideas of knowledge in the African space. Knowledge is constantly changing and being modified to suit situations affecting humankind, and so the possession of a certain kind of wisdom in any area establishes a niche area of expertise in the field, especially if the field is vibrant and not redundant. This chapter will examine diviners, especially the Babalawo (Ifa priests), and ideas of knowledge they generate and possess.

Likewise, the power and influence that emanates from this knowledge will also be examined. It is imperative to understand the different interpretations of knowledge and ideas, which will be explored in this chapter, and the different conceptual interpretations of knowledge. Who are diviners and how are they identified as custodians of knowledge? The categorization of some people as diviners and the origin of divination is important to this study as a vantage point to begin understanding the contributions to the world of knowledge that diviners generate and possess.

Knowledge may be an abstract concept, but its referent denotes a powerful subject despite its elusive conceptual meaning. An attempt to define the term “knowledge” is relatively due to the varied subjects that claim to espouse this term. Knowledge is drawn from both simple and complex phenomena. The concept of knowledge in the humanities is relational and contextual because of the fluidity and broad scope of the concept. In this chapter, the knowledge indigenous to the African space is what will be contextualized. Knowledge is often captured as facts, information, truths, understanding of theories of existence acquired through the study of different aspects of the world. It is synonymous with the claim of “knowing”—the data gathered from beliefs, philosophies, traditions, practices, and institutions that generate and/or deploy knowledge. African indigenous knowledge is the system/body of ideas, theories, facts, data, episteme, etc., which has contributed to the growth, sustenance, and development of the African space over time. This Afrocentric knowledge deals with worldviews, thought systems, practices, and philosophies that support the African way of life.

This chapter will delve into the ideas of knowledge that diviners, especially the Babalawo of Yorùbá descent, possess and generate. In the course of detangling the generation of ideas of knowledge, it will attempt to capture the unique types of ideas about knowledge found among the diviners of Africa. The emphasis on the type of knowledge is to delimit the scope of the chapter to capture the ideas of knowledge in the Yorùbá cosmology, which is extracted from the culture and traditions, especially those that directly impact the practice of divination and diviners’ knowledge claim. This chapter will attempt to extrapolate how these ideas of knowledge are produced, how diviners generate these ideas of knowledge, what methods or ways are employed in the acquisition of knowledge, and the nature of these ideas of knowledge and their basis.

The chapter will then proceed to highlight and discuss how diviners are trained, the process of educating the diviners with the necessary skills to be successful in the profession. In this section, the chapter will investigate and highlight the process of grooming the diviner, which includes the apprenticeship selection, years of training, skills homed in on during the training process, etc. Because the diviner is an appendage to the practice of Ifa divination, the chapter will briefly discuss the origin of divination and the connection with the diviner’s possession of ideas of knowledge.

The chapter will discuss areas that diviners have distinguished their possession of ideas of knowledge and how they dispense them. Diviners have been categorized and/or perceived as local practitioners and charlatans who do not possess scientific knowledge or have Western knowledge through formal education. However, the possession or lack of Western education makes little or no difference to the divination outcome and the knowledge gleaned from a consultation. Diviners’ ideas of knowledge encompass a different discipline than modern/Western terms and concepts. Some of these ideas may intersect with different disciplines that are crucial to human life and quality of living.

Diviners and Divination

Divination is an important part of the diviner’s profession; in fact, it is the act of divining that makes the diviner an expert in his field and in the generation of ideas of knowledge. It is imperative to discuss rather briefly the term divination before proceeding to the ideas that diviners possess. Accord ing to Ozioma and Chinwe:

Divination means consulting the spirit world. It is a method by which information concerning an individual or circumstance of illness is obtained through the use of randomly arranged symbols in order to gain healing knowledge. It is also viewed as a way to access information that is normally beyond the reach of the rational mind. It is a transpersonal technique in which diviners base their knowledge on communication with the spiritual forces, such as the ancestors, spirits, and deities. It is, therefore, an integral part of an African traditional way of diagnosing diseases.¹

Divination has been perceived as one of the methods diviners use to diagnose their patients/clients. Diviners, through divination, have a greater chance of knowing the nature of the ailment and the cause of the affliction. Divination may be carried out with divination chains, nuts, beads, cowries, shells, etc. Bascom notes that the Babalawo are herbalists as much as they can also be regarded, in some sense, as diviners—although divining is their primary function. Clients may come to them for medicine without having a divination, and they pay extra for its preparation.² The Babalawo possess knowledge of herbs and plants as well as medicine as enunciated in Bascom’s description of the diviner. The diviner may divine in some cases and may not need to in others which require his physical or non-spiritual aid.

The word “diviner” comes from the broader term or concept of “divination,” which is an act of geomancy. Diviners in Nigeria, especially in the Southwest part of Nigeria, are known as the Babalawo (who are male diviners) and Iyanifa (for the women diviners) in Yorùbá. The act of divination makes one a diviner, although without human effort and presence, the act is not achievable. Divination has been compared to a multitude of things, especially in the fields of computers and philosophy, because of the similarities that scholars have established among them. Alamu et al. capture the basic information represented in divination as “the act of seeking after knowledge of future or hidden things by inadequate means which is usually supplemented by some power which is represented all through history as coming from gods.”³ This definition captures that the retention of knowledge embedded in divination which is carried out by diviners is a method of uncovering hidden knowledge. Diviners are part of the structure of the social institutions in many African societies because of their claim of knowledge and the deployment of these ideas of knowledge in the communities. In Nigeria, the Babalawo are known to be diviners through the manipulation of the divination beads or chains.

The diviner is the heart of the divination because he is the medium between the deities and the human who has come to seek the help of the supernatural beings. The diviner becomes the mouthpiece for the deity while consulting the divinities on behalf of the person(s). When Ifa reveals the message/solution to the inquirer’s problem, the diviner explains it in a plain and simplified version for easy comprehension. The diviner becomes indispensable to the act of recovering, investigating, and acquiring knowledge through divination or otherwise. Peek writes:

A divination system is a standardized process deriving from a learned discipline based on an extensive body of knowledge. This knowledge may or may not be literally expressed during the interpretation of the oracular message. The diviner may utilize a fixed corpus, such as the Yorùbá Ifa Odu verses, or a more diffuse body of esoteric knowledge. Divining processes are diverse, but all follow set routines by which otherwise inaccessible information is obtained.⁴

Peek extracts the diviner’s duty and function in the attempt to draw out the definition of divination as a synchronized method of knowledge production drawn out from the ingenuity of the diviner’s ability to configure and/or manipulate the text or employ his training to generate hidden texts and information. Divination gives the diviner an edge to synthesize ideas gathered from years of study, wisdom inherent in the society’s thought system, and metaphysical data received through geomancy. Divination serves as a compass to the right direction and navigation system to get to the destination at the appropriately designated time. The diviner becomes more attuned to his knowledge base through the assistance of divination.

The Grooming of the Diviner

The ideas of knowledge possessed by diviners, especially the Babalawo, are generated from their study, training, and practice of the knowledge implicit in the exploration of their primary text, that is, the Ifa Corpus. Peek and other scholars of African divination systems recognize different types of diviners and their divination systems in Africa; however, the emphasis of this study is based on the ideas of knowledge possessed by the Babalawo in southwestern Nigeria. Diviners are trained to acquire knowledge through thorough investigation, a good memory for retaining and recollecting data, processing of information, and interpretation skills honed through careful training. Diviners go through a long period of formal or informal training under the tutelage of an experienced diviner. Peek, alongside other scholars like Abimbola and Bascom, avers that Yorùbá diviners are trained for at least ten years in the branches of knowledge on which Ifa divination is based.⁵

After the successful completion of their training, these trainees are presented to the cult of diviners for the initiation process, which is sometimes followed by a ceremonial outing and introduction into the profession. Learning and training, rather than ending after the initiation ceremony, continues throughout the diviner’s lifetime because of the extensive and inexhaustible nature of knowledge in this profession. Peek’s study on diviners avers that many of these diviners continue learning and refining their skills throughout their lives, sharing their expertise, and studying with more renowned diviners.⁶ Falokun Fatumbi further said that in Ode Remo, a Yorùbá town, training to become a diviner begins when a child is seven years old and lasts ten to fifteen years. “The education involves memorization of 256 verses of oral scripture including the prayers, invocations, songs, dances and herbal medicine associated with each verse.”⁷

Diviners can be male or female, as studies on diviners in Africa, especially in Yorùbá culture, have shown. The Babalawo or Mamalawo are specialists trained to generate ideas of knowledge from the Ifa Corpus. The services of diviners were extensive in the preliterate era in many African societies—unlike the present time when Western ideologies have pushed these Afrocentric knowledge base and epistemologies to the back burner.

The Role of the Diviner

Zuess explains:

The greatest auth...