The sign: the third position and the figure

The third in line

Anyone who opens the list of the sixteen principal Odu meets Ejiogbe first, then Oyeku, and only then Iwori Meji. In the order of seniority that Wándé Abímbọ́lá records in Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá (p. 29), Iwori Méji holds third place. The list runs in two columns, with the odd numbers (1, 3, 5…) on one side and the even ones (2, 4, 6…) on the other: Iwori appears as number 3, just below Eji Ogbé, and Oyeku Meji as number 2 (Abímbọ́lá, Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá, p. 29). This is the order the site has followed since module 9, and it is why the course reaches Iwori after Ejiogbe (module 11) and Oyeku (module 12).

A Meji is a "pure" Odu: the same leg of the sign appears twice, on the right and on the left. The site's entry for Iwori Meji records the figure as II - I - I - II, that is, a double mark, a single mark, a single mark, a double mark (the iwori entry, at /odu/iwori, which cites Abímbọ́lá, p. 29, and Bascom, Ifa Divination, chs. III–IV, for how the oracle works). Anyone who has done module 2 will recognize the pattern: two double marks at the ends, two single marks in the middle. This lesson looks at that pattern and at the sign's place in the line, and leaves the essence, the patakís, the two sides of the sign and the name in the traditions for the next four.

The form of the name depends on the tradition being discussed. In the Tratado Enciclopédico de Ifá, the entry for the sign opens on p. 170 under the title "Iwori Meyi", the Cuban spelling the site uses in odu-lucumi.ts (Tratado, p. 170). In Abímbọ́lá's Nigerian list the spelling is "Iwori Méji" (p. 29). These are not two signs but the same position written by two traditions; this course always keeps the spelling of the source the sentence is speaking about. The same goes for the figure: the Tratado's entry reproduces it in the header, with the four levels of marks, before the text begins (Tratado, p. 170).

What makes Iwori interesting from the first lesson is that the position "third" is not a neutral fact. The Tratado spends whole pages explaining how the sign came to it: it says that in heaven Iwori was the oldest of Orunmila's Olodu (apostles) and that he lost his seniority to two younger brothers, Ejiogbe and Oyeku Meji (Tratado, p. 170). Abímbọ́lá's list only orders; the Tratado tells why the order is what it is. The two sources agree on the result, third place, and it is this agreement, more than either source alone, that supports the title of this lesson. In the sections that follow we read what the Tratado says about heaven, what it tells of the earth, and what the figure allows us (and does not allow us) to say.

In heaven: the oldest of Orunmila's

The Tratado's entry begins with a statement that surprises anyone who knows only the list: "while in heaven, Iwori was the oldest Olodu (apostle) of Orunmila" (Tratado, p. 170, our translation from the Spanish). The same paragraph describes him as very efficient in the art and practices of Ifá, the trainer of several celestial priests, with many assistants working for him. It then says what moved him down the line: he was "very conceited", which "explains why he eventually lost his seniority" to Ejiogbe and Oyeku Meji, "who were, on the other hand, much younger than he in heaven" (Tratado, p. 170).

The text adds a remark about method that is worth repeating: of Iwori's heavenly work "there are no tales", because he did not allow his followers to come to earth, and they would have revealed those works here. Some works, however, were told by those who benefited from them (Tratado, p. 170). The patakís the Tratado gives next, about the Sun, the Moon and Darkness, about the coral bead and about lead, come by that second route (Tratado, pp. 170–172); lesson 3 returns to them. Here only the portrait of the sign in heaven matters: the eldest, skilled and proud.

The passage that explains the third position is on p. 174, under the subtitle "Iwori Meyi departs from heaven for earth". According to the Tratado, it was "delay and complacency" that led him to the third position on arriving on earth. When Orunmila returned from his journey to earth and invited his sixteen children to go and found a permanent dwelling there, he proposed that they go one at a time. Iwori Meji was the first to speak: he said he was so useful in heaven that the time to leave had not yet come, and argued that "a good general does not send his best soldiers to be the first in battle". He then proposed that the first to go should be Ejiogbe, whom he described as the only Olodu sociable enough to deal effectively with the other divinities and as the best ambassador of Orunmila's caste (Tratado, p. 174). Ejiogbe offered to lead the departure. Later it was Iwori again who proposed that Oyeku Meji go next; Oyeku, as seen in module 12, was born at night and crowned king of the night (Tratado, p. 174). Only on hearing the news that life was prospering on earth did Iwori decide to follow his two brothers (Tratado, p. 174).

There is a reading here that is ours, and we mark it as such: the account has the shape of a lesson on the cost of waiting. Whoever proposes that the others go first sees the others arrive first. The Tratado does not state this moral; it says only that delay and complacency were the cause (Tratado, p. 174). The rest is the course's interpretation, which the reader may accept or not.

On earth: the dispute over seniority

On arriving, Iwori finds his two younger brothers already crowned: Ejiogbe, king of the day, and Oyeku Meji, king of the night. The Tratado says he was determined, "from the beginning", to establish his heavenly seniority on earth (Tratado, p. 176). It adds a detail about the figure that is worth keeping: "even his sign, two inside and two outside, was designed to challenge the authorities of Ejiogbe and Oyeku" (Tratado, p. 176, our translation). The sentence is the Tratado's and should not be read as a general rule for reading figures: it is the explanation that tradition gives for the pattern of this sign.

The scene that follows is told precisely. One afternoon, sitting in front of his house, Iwori sees a procession pass in which everyone bows to the man on horseback at its head: it is Ejiogbe. Iwori does not kneel; he only shakes his own horsetail (oroke), as the awoses were accustomed to do in greeting. He saw no reason to kneel before his younger brother, although, the text notes, nothing in tradition exempts the elder brother of a king from kneeling to greet him. Ejiogbe halts the procession and orders that, if Iwori considers himself too great to greet him, he must from now on stay inside his house during the day (Tratado, p. 176).

At night the scene repeats with Oyeku Meji, whom Iwori also does not greet on his knees, and the answer is symmetrical: he is not to go out at night. The result, says the Tratado, is that he was forbidden to leave his house by day or by night, so that he could not even go out for his daily bread (Tratado, p. 176). The way out comes through Eshu, who transforms himself into a chief and advises Iwori to invite his brothers to a meeting (Tratado, p. 176). The three meet at the foot of the palm by which the divinities came down from heaven and by which Orunmila returned to it. Ejiogbe and Oyeku insist on keeping their superiority; the final agreement is that Iwori take the third position, which he accepts "reluctantly" (Tratado, pp. 176–177).

Third child, third place

From this episode the Tratado draws a consequence for reading the sign, which we reproduce as information from the source and do not take as a rule of our own: when Iwori Meji comes out in the ugbodu, the person must be the third of the children in a family, or must have been reborn, that is, have died shortly after birth and been born again to the same parents (Tratado, p. 177). The author of the entry illustrates this with a case from his own family, that of a son whose Ifá is Iwori Meyi (Tratado, p. 177). We record the statement with its page and nothing more: we do not turn it into a criterion for anyone, and the course studies the text, it does not apply the sign to people.

The entry goes on with the longest story of the set, that of the celestial awoses who visit the nobles of the world with a proclamation about who can tell their names (Tratado, pp. 175 and 177). That story is the subject of lesson 3 and we do not anticipate it here.

What the figure says, and what it does not

Back to the figure. The site's entry records II - I - I - II; the Tratado, in the header of the entry, draws the four levels and then states, on p. 176, that the sign is "two inside and two outside". Read together, the two sources say the same thing in two ways: double marks at the ends of the leg, single marks in the middle (the iwori entry; Tratado, pp. 170 and 176). Compared with Ejiogbe (all single marks) and with Oyeku (all double), it shows why the tradition speaks of a challenge: Iwori mixes, in the same leg, the two patterns of the brothers who precede him. This comparison is our reading; the Tratado speaks of the challenge but does not spell out the comparison.

It is also worth saying what this lesson does not do. It does not say what Iwori "means" for anyone, it does not describe prayers or ẹbọ, and it proposes nothing for anyone's life. The Tratado's entry contains material of that kind; Ifá Wisdom studies the text as text, with work and page, and does not turn it into a recipe. In the next four lessons, the site's entry (the essence), the entry's patakís, the warnings and the proverbs and, finally, the name in the traditions will be read with the same yardstick.

Sources for this lesson: Abímbọ́lá, "Sixteen Great Poems of Ifá", p. 29 (seniority); Bascom, "Ifa Divination", chs. III–IV (how the oracle works); Tratado Enciclopédico de Ifá, entry for Iwori Meyi, pp. 170–177; the /odu/iwori entry. See /fontes.