The 16 Odu Meji: The Map of Ifá

The whole corpus of Ifá fits on a grid of sixteen by sixteen. On the two edges of that grid stand sixteen signs, and when one of them appears repeated on both sides it receives a name of honour: Meji, "double". These are the sixteen Odu Meji, the eldest and most important of the 256. This text is a map: it says what they are, in what order they come, why the order is not the same everywhere and where you can read each one here on the site. It interprets no one's sign, because that is not done through a text.

Sixteen times sixteen

Wándé Abímbọ́lá describes how the sign is formed: the babalawo records the marks four times, in two columns, from right to left (Abímbọ́lá, Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá, p. 13). Each column can take sixteen forms. When the two columns are the same, the Odu takes the name of the sign followed by Méji, and these are the sixteen principal Odu; sixteen forms on one side times sixteen on the other give the 256 Odus, and when the sides differ the result is one of the 240 minor Odus (p. 14). William Bascom does the same arithmetic and insists there are 256, "no more and no less" (Bascom, Ifa Divination, p. 42). He adds a detail of reading: the right half of the sign is held to be male and stronger than the left (pp. 40–41).

The names vary with language and house. Abímbọ́lá calls the sixteen major ones Ojú Odù and the 240 minor ones Ọmọ Odù or Àmúlù Odù (Abímbọ́lá, p. 29); Bascom records the doubles as olodu and the combinations as amulu, and says the sixteen pairs outrank the 240 combinations (Bascom, p. 42). Here on the site, the 240 derived Odus are called Omoluos. And the Tratado Enciclopédico de Ifá, our Cuban source, opens its entry on Odi Meyi by calling it one of the strongest olodus (Tratado, PDF p. 2), with the spelling Meyi for the same Meji.

The order of the sixteen

The Meji are not equal among themselves. Abímbọ́lá says the Ojú Odù stand far above the others and that there is a strict order of seniority among them, and he gives the list (Abímbọ́lá, p. 29). Bascom explains what that order means: it is the order in which the Odus were born (Bascom, pp. 47–48). In Abímbọ́lá's order, which is also that of the Yoruba southwest in Bascom's table (Bascom, p. 48), and the one the site's entries follow:

#	Odu	Entry	Read more
1	Ogbe (Eji Ogbe)	Ogbe	Ogbe Meji · Study of Ejiogbe
2	Oyeku	Oyeku	Oyeku Meji · Study of Oyekun Meyi
3	Iwori	Iwori	Study of Iwori Meyi
4	Odi	Odi	Study of Odi Meyi
5	Irosun	Irosun
6	Owonrin	Owonrin
7	Obara	Obara
8	Okanran	Okanran
9	Ogunda	Ogunda
10	Osa	Osa
11	Ika	Ika
12	Oturupon	Oturupon
13	Otura	Otura
14	Irete	Irete
15	Ose	Ose
16	Ofun	Ofun

Abímbọ́lá records that the sixteenth is also called Orangun Méji (Abímbọ́lá, p. 30). Each entry carries the naming table with the Yoruba name and the Lucumí name, each with its source; the full list of the 256 is in the library.

Why the order changes

Anyone comparing books and houses soon notices that the list is not always the same. Bascom treated this methodically: he gathered 86 lists from 61 sources and found that the names of the sixteen are the same throughout the Yoruba area, among the Fon and the Ewe, in Cuba and in Brazil (Bascom, Ifa Divination, p. 47). The order is not. The dominant sequence appears in 42 of the 86 lists, and there are 21 other orders; the variants are concentrated in the Yoruba northeast (Ifẹ, Ilesa, Ekiti, Igbomina), and the dominant order in the southwest (p. 47). Abímbọ́lá also records notable local variations (Abímbọ́lá, p. 29).

And in Cuba? Bascom records that five of the six Cuban lists he examined, and the only Brazilian one, follow the dominant order (Bascom, p. 47). The Tratado Enciclopédico de Ifá gives no numbered list, but arranges the signs in the same sequence: in the chapter on Odi Meyi, the derived signs appear in the order Odi Lobe (with Ogbe), Odi Yeku, Odi Wori, Odi Iroso, Odi Juani, Odi Bara, Odi Kana, Odi Ogunda, Odi Sa, Odi Ika and Odi Trupon (Tratado, PDF pp. 32–127). It is Abímbọ́lá's order, with the Lucumí names: Iroso for Irosun, Ojuani for Owonrin, Okana for Okanran and Otrupon for Oturupon.

Bascom himself follows, in his first table, the order of Ifẹ, in which Obara and Okanran come right after Odi, before Irosun and Owonrin, and in which Irete and Otura come before Oturupon (Bascom, p. 4). And he makes an observation that unsettles any hasty reading of the list: Ofun Meji, though listed sixteenth, is equal in rank to Owonrin, the eighth in that order (pp. 47–48). Position on the list and weight in the system are not the same thing.

The divergence is not resolved by choosing a side. The entry for each Odu shows the names of both traditions, and this map shows the order the site uses and where it comes from.

What each Meji holds

Each Odu is a chapter, not a word. Abímbọ́lá says the corpus has 256 chapters and that each Odu holds hundreds of poems (Abímbọ́lá, pp. 29–30); the long ones, epic in tone, are called Ifá Nlanla, and every ese follows a structure of eight parts, four obligatory and four optional (p. 30). Bascom, for his part, places the core of the system in the thousands of verses the babalawo memorises (Bascom, p. 11).

That is why one-line summaries call for care. The sixteen great poems Abímbọ́lá published are not one poem per Meji: the book's appendix states which Odu each came from, and only some come from Meji (Abímbọ́lá, p. 449). These are:

• Iwori Meji: the first poem, on the birth of the Ifá system (p. 51), which we read in the Study Orunmila, the owner of Ifá.
• Oyeku Meji: the third, a long Ifá Nlanla on marriage and rivalry between co-wives (p. 105).
• Ogunda Meji: the fifth, on Orí as each person's personal orisha (p. 158), which we discuss in Orí, the spiritual head.
• Obara Meji: the seventh and eighth (pp. 208, 235).
• Osa Meji: the ninth, tenth and eleventh, three poems of conflict, two of them with the ajé among the protagonists (pp. 261, 292, 309).
• Ofun Meji: the twelfth (p. 323).

The other poems come from combined Odus, such as Ogbegunda, the source of the story of Ajala and the choice of Orí (pp. 178, 449). In other words: the Meji are the backbone of the corpus, but the corpus does not end with them.

How to use this map

Start with the entry. Each Odu page gathers what the site has verified about that sign, with the source of each statement. Then go on to the Studies, which read one Odu at a time, in order of seniority, through one or two patakís. And if you want to see all 256 together, the library is the complete index. The Orishas who appear in these texts have their own pages under Orishas.

What we do not claim

• We do not say which is your Odu: no text, and not this site, says that. A person's sign is a matter for the babalawo's table.
• We do not present the site's order as the only correct one: Bascom documents several, and the entries show the differences.
• We did not find, in the works we use, a numbered Lucumí list of the sixteen with a page; the Cuban order we show is the one the Tratado follows in arranging the signs.
• We do not assign each Meji a "keyword" that sums up the sign. The entries and the Studies read patakís with page numbers; an adjective does not replace a chapter.
• We do not give here an exact count of verses per Odu: the sources speak of hundreds, and we fix no number.
• The Tratado's pages for each Meji are in the entries; in this text we cite only those we checked for it.

Frequently asked questions

What does Meji mean?

It is the name given to the Odu in which the same sign appears on both sides; the sixteen formed this way are the principal ones (Abímbọ́lá, p. 14). In Cuba it is written Meyi.

How many Odus are there?

There are 256: the 16 Meji and 240 combinations (Abímbọ́lá, p. 14; Bascom, Ifa Divination, p. 42). Here on the site, the combined Odus are called Omoluos.

Which is the first Odu?

In the order of seniority that Abímbọ́lá records, it is Eji Ogbe (Abímbọ́lá, p. 29), also called Ejiogbe. The order of the others varies between regions (Bascom, p. 47).

Are the Meji more important than the other Odus?

The sources say so, in rank: the sixteen pairs outrank the 240 combinations (Bascom, p. 42; Abímbọ́lá, p. 29). That does not make the combined Odus lesser in teaching: many of the great poems come from them.

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What you have read here is rooted in the 256 Odus of Ifá — the corpus we study verse by verse. Read them as contemplation: real divination belongs at the table of a consecrated babalawo.

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