Is Ifá Candomblé? Differences and Points of Contact

The short answer is no: Ifá is not Candomblé, and Candomblé is not Ifá. But the short answer misleads, because the two traditions were born of the same Yoruba world, speak of the same Orishas, greet Eshu before anything else and use the same word, odu, for the signs of their oracles. This text shows where they touch and where they part, with what the sources record. It does not place one above the other: each has its own priests, its own knowledge and its own history.

Two short answers

What Ifá is. For William Bascom, Ifá is a system of divination based on sixteen basic and 256 derivative figures, the Odus, with a cult of its own whose rituals are comparable to those of the other Yoruba cults (Bascom, Ifa Divination, p. 3). The one who practises it is the babalawo. Pierre Verger describes the babalawos as spokesmen of Orunmila, whom he presents as a deity who "is neither Orisha nor ebora", and says that their initiation involves no momentary loss of consciousness: it is, in his words, entirely intellectual (Verger, Orixás, PDF p. 56). This classification is Verger's, who reserves the name Orisha for the family of Orishala and calls the other deities ebora (PDF p. 97). Other sources classify differently: Bastide records, in Bahia, Orunmila among the Orishas who do not "come down" in possession (Bastide, O Candomblé da Bahia, p. 28), and David H. Brown, writing about Cuba, calls Orula the babalawo's patron oricha (Brown, Santería Enthroned, p. 76).

What Candomblé is. For Roger Bastide, who studied the terreiros of Bahia, in Candomblé the Orishas "reincarnate" in the bodies of the faithful, and possession is the central point of the public cult (Bastide, O Candomblé da Bahia, p. 19). The candomblés are organised in "nations", such as Angola, Congo, Jeje, Nagô, Ketu and Ijexá, distinguished by drumming, language and ritual, and Yoruba influence predominates over the whole (p. 17). Verger adds that responsibility for the cult rests on the pai or mãe de santo, the father or mother of the house (Verger, PDF p. 32).

The first difference is already visible: Ifá is a system of knowledge and divination centred on Orunmila; Candomblé is a cult of the Orishas, with initiation and trance, gathered in a terreiro.

In Africa, local cults; in Brazil, the terreiro

One of Verger's most useful observations is that in Yorubaland the cult of each Orisha depended on the history of each town: Shango had no official cult in Ifẹ, Oshun was present in Ijexá and absent among the Egba, and Yemoja was not known in Ijexá (Verger, PDF p. 2). In Africa, an Orisha was invoked in a temple of its own, by a family collective; in the New World, several Orishas came to be called in the same terreiro (PDF p. 35). For Verger, the Brazilian terreiro gathers the personal Orishas of its members around the Orisha of the house, a symbol of the regrouping of what the slave trade had scattered (PDF p. 20).

Ifá held another place on that map. Bascom observes that Ifá is open to the public: babalawos are consulted by worshippers of any deity, whereas other forms of divination are used within the cults of particular deities (Bascom, Ifa Divination, p. 11). It is a difference of function, not of worth.

Where the two touch

The same Orishas and the same messenger. In the Candomblé described by Bastide, each stage of initiation begins with a sacrifice to Eshu, the obligatory intermediary between humans and the Orishas (Bastide, p. 46), and every public ceremony begins with a homage to him, the padê (p. 216). Verger records the same padê before the xirê, the encounter with Eshu, the messenger of the other gods (Verger, PDF p. 34). In Ifá, Eshu is carved on the rim of the babalawo's tray (Abímbọ́lá, Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá, p. 18), as we tell in the guide on opele, ikin and cowries. Why Eshu comes first is the subject of our open Study, Eshu: why he eats first.

The babalaô at the terreiro's door. Bastide records that in Bahia whoever wished to enter a candomblé had to begin by consulting the babalaô, who questioned the chain of Ifá or the cowries to learn which Orisha is the "owner" of his head (Bastide, p. 33; see also pp. 42–43). One of his informants sums it up: the babalorixá needs the babalaô, the babalossaim and the babaogê (p. 137). Verger, on the African side, tells that when a child is born the parents ask the babalawo which odu it is tied to, and the odu indicates its particular Orisha (Verger, PDF p. 56).

The word odu. In the sixteen cowries of the Orisha cults and in the babalawo's Ifá, the figures are called odu and the verses ese, and many names of figures are cognate (Bascom, Sixteen Cowries, pp. 5, 21–22). One system speaks with the other without one being the other.

Where they part

Priesthood. The babalawo is a priest of Ifá; the pai or mãe de santo leads the cult of the Orishas in the terreiro (Verger, PDF p. 32; Bastide, p. 66). Bascom adds, for the Nigeria he studied, that the cowries can be practised by men and women, and that only men become babalawo (Bascom, Sixteen Cowries, p. 3; Ifa Divination, p. 81). This does not close Ifá to women: the worshippers of Ifá include men and women (Bascom, Ifa Divination, p. 81), Abímbọ́lá records women initiated as priestesses of Ifá (Abímbọ́lá, pp. 7–8), and in Cuba a woman who receives the ikofá may act as apetebí (Brown, p. 346, note 130).

Initiation. In Candomblé, possession stands at the centre of the public cult (Bastide, p. 19); the babalawo's initiation, according to Verger, does not pass through trance (Verger, PDF p. 56).

Instrument. The babalawo works with the ikin or the opele and with 256 figures; the diviner of the Orisha cults with sixteen cowries and seventeen figures (Bascom, Sixteen Cowries, p. 21). In Bahian Candomblé it is the mãe or pai de santo who consults the obi and, at times, the cowries (Bastide, p. 66).

In Bahia: the babalaô who almost disappeared

Brazil had babalaôs. Verger tells that Martiniano Eliseu do Bonfim returned from Lagos and became a much-sought babalaô, and that Felisberto Américo Sowser, known as Benzinho, was "one of the last in Bahia" (Verger, PDF p. 18). Bastide records that in the Brazil of his time the personal Ifá was no longer drawn, and that Martiniano is said to have gone to Africa precisely for that (Bastide, p. 184).

After Martiniano, Bastide writes, the babalaôs seem to vanish from the scene. There was, he says, a real war between babalorixás and babalaôs, but his reading is subtler than a victory of one priesthood over the other: one form of divination replaced another, and the cowrie defeated the chain of Ifá (Bastide, p. 135). Bascom, looking at the Americas as a whole, reaches a similar finding: here the cowries became more important than Ifá (Bascom, Sixteen Cowries, p. 3). You can read the full story in The history of Candomblé.

And in Cuba?

In Cuba the two lines lived together in another way. David H. Brown shows that the founders of the Afro-Cuban religion belonged to two distinct branches of the priesthood, the Regla de Ocha and the Regla de Ifá (Brown, Santería Enthroned, p. 69). The relation between them holds respect and friction: babalawos call certain reforms by santeros a fraud, and at the same time respect competent cowrie diviners (p. 12). Brown speaks of hierarchies of babalawos and santeros built in Cuba (p. 11) and describes, in the houses of Ocha, the oriatés who direct the initiations (p. 73). Bascom records that in Cuba the cowries, the dilogún, are probably the most important system in the Afro-Cuban cults, although Ifá is also practised and respected (Bascom, Sixteen Cowries, p. 4).

Side by side

	Ifá	Candomblé
Centre	Orunmila and the 256 Odus	the Orishas, in the terreiro
Priest	babalawo	pai or mãe de santo
Oracle	ikin and opele, 256 figures	cowries, 17 figures; also the obi
Initiation	intellectual formation, without trance (Verger)	possession at the centre of the public cult (Bastide)
Common ground	Eshu first; the same Orishas; the word odu

What we do not claim

• We do not say that one tradition is older, purer or truer than the other. Bastide went so far as to call certain candomblés "purer" (Bastide, p. 18); we do not adopt that yardstick.
• We do not describe the practice of each house today: we record what these authors saw and wrote, each in his own time.
• We do not say that Candomblé's cowrie divination is Ifá, nor that it derives from it: the sources differ, as we show in the guide on opele, ikin and cowries.
• We do not deal here with Umbanda, which is another tradition with another history.
• We do not deal with Iyanifá or with the debate between lineages about it: the works we consulted do not address the subject.
• We do not say that women are seen as "greater" in Ifá: we did not find that statement in the works we consulted.

Frequently asked questions

Are a babalawo and a pai de santo the same thing?

No. The babalawo is a priest of Ifá and spokesman of Orunmila (Verger, PDF p. 56); the pai or mãe de santo leads the cult of the Orishas in the terreiro (Verger, PDF p. 32). In the Bahia described by Bastide, one needed the other (Bastide, p. 137).

Does Candomblé use Ifá?

It did, and it still speaks with it. Bastide records the babalaô consulted before initiation (Bastide, p. 33), but also that over time the cowrie defeated the chain of Ifá (p. 135). Bascom finds that in the Americas the cowries became more important than Ifá (Bascom, Sixteen Cowries, p. 3).

Is Eshu the same in both traditions?

The sources describe him in both places as the messenger who comes first: in the padê of Candomblé (Bastide, p. 216; Verger, PDF p. 34) and on the rim of the Ifá tray (Abímbọ́lá, p. 18). Meet him on the page of Eshu.

In Cuba, are Santería and Ifá the same thing?

Brown describes two branches of the priesthood, the Regla de Ocha and the Regla de Ifá, which live together with respect and friction (Brown, pp. 12, 69). On the owner of Ifá, read the page of Orunmila and, for the signs, the library of the Odus.

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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.

Explore the Odus of Ifá →