Mystical systems
Ifá
Direct answer
Ifá is the divination system of the Yoruba people of West Africa, in which a trained priest casts palm nuts or a chain to find one of 256 signs and recites its verses.
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At a glance
- Also called
- ifa divination, ifa yoruba, babalawo, odu ifa
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Divination, Cleromancy, Geomancy, Oracle
Ifá is the divination system of the Yoruba people of West Africa, in which a trained priest casts palm nuts or a chain to find one of 256 signs and recites its verses.
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What is Ifá?
Ifá belongs to the Yoruba of Nigeria and their neighbours in Benin and Togo. Its priest is the babalawo, a title usually translated as father of the mysteries, and its patron is Orunmila, the deity of wisdom. The priest passes sixteen palm nuts from hand to hand, or throws a chain of eight seed halves, and marks the result as single or double lines in powder on a wooden tray. Eight marks in two columns make a sign, called an odu.
There are 256 odu. Each has its own verses, stories of mythical clients who faced a problem and what they were told to do. The priest recites those that belong to the sign cast, and the client picks out the story that fits the case. Advice and an offering usually follow.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Tarot, runes, I Ching.
What sets Ifá apart
Ifá joins a binary cast to a library held in memory. The palm nuts or the chain yield eight marks, each single or double, which is the same arithmetic as two four-line figures side by side. What sets it apart is what follows: the sign is not looked up in a book but recited, and the verses are narratives with a client, a problem, an instruction and an outcome. The client, not the priest, decides which story applies, and often does not tell the priest the question at all.
- People: the Yoruba of Nigeria, Benin and Togo, and their descendants abroad
- Priest: the babalawo; women initiated to Ifá in some lineages are called iyanifa
- Tools: sixteen palm nuts, or a chain of eight seed halves, and a wooden tray
- Signs: 256 odu, from sixteen principal figures paired with one another
- Patron: Orunmila, the deity of wisdom and of divination
- UNESCO: proclaimed a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage in 2005
Often mistaken for something else: Geomancy, the Arabic and European sand art, also builds four-line figures of single and double marks, but has sixteen figures with fixed meanings; Ifá pairs them into 256 and attaches oral verses.
The story behind Ifá
Ifá is an oral tradition of unknown age, already long established when outside observers described it. The enslavement of Yoruba people carried it to the Americas, where it continues in Cuba, Brazil and elsewhere. The American anthropologist William Bascom published a detailed study, Ifa Divination, in 1969. UNESCO proclaimed the Ifá divination system a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2005.
Why Ifá matters
Ifá is among the most elaborate divination systems in use anywhere, a living religious practice and not a historical curiosity.
How to read Ifá
Clients consult a babalawo at births, marriages, illnesses and turning points, and priests train for years to memorise the verses.
Ifá in practice: an example
A man asks about a quarrel with his brother; the priest casts, recites several stories from the odu that falls, and the man recognises his own position in one of them.
Where readings of Ifá go wrong
Ifá is a living religion with its own priesthood and initiation. It is practised under trained elders and is not a parlour method.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- ifa divination, ifa meaning, ifa yoruba, babalawo, odu ifa
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is Ifá?
It is the traditional divination system of the Yoruba people. A priest casts palm nuts or a divining chain to arrive at one of 256 signs, then recites the verses that tradition attaches to that sign.
What is a babalawo?
A babalawo is a priest of Ifá. The training is long, since a priest is expected to know by heart a large number of verses for each of the 256 signs.
How many odu are there in Ifá?
There are sixteen principal odu. Each can pair with any of the sixteen, which gives 256 signs in all.
