Because ancient practices
should be understood, not left in the shadows.
Omitonade Ifawemimo
presents as a modern-day sage, with gleaming eyes, a petite frame — and wisdom
to spare. She is in fact a 20-something Orisha priestess, with an easy smile
and tightly knotted hair. And she has made it her mission to teach and preserve
the Orisha and Ifa spiritual practices, which are indigenous to the Yoruba
people of Nigeria and adjoining parts of Togo and Benin.
“When you see her in
person, she is this tiny presence,” says journalist and culture historian
Molara Wood. “She is not this image of an intimidating traditional-religion
adherent that a lot of Nigerians have.”
Ifawemimo’s journey
started at the age of 5 when she was initiated into the Orisha traditions by
her parents, and by 15 she found herself dining with elders and mastering the
art and science of divination, chanting and rituals. At 20, through a
combination of study, practice and heeding the spiritual call, she earned her
place as a priestess.
For Ifawemimo to step
forward on Twitter and Instagram … reflects both her bravery and ingenuity in a
religiously polarized space.
Concerned that the Orisha
culture and its practices were being scorned and forgotten, Ifawemimo took to
social media six years ago in an effort to educate a broader audience about indigenous Yoruba spirituality. Her inspiration? Nollywood, or Nigeria’s
film industry, which she blames for depicting Yoruba spirituality as a practice
based on sorcery, love potions and get-rich-quick charms, distorting its
history and contributing to negative stereotypes. “Though our people have been
brainwashed already, [Nollywood] has made our people lack knowledge and
enlightenment about their roots,” she says.
Wood believes Ifawemimo’s
work is crucial for countering the “stigma, hypocrisy, misunderstanding and
demonization of the traditional culture,” with most viewing it as evil, and
traditional worshippers forced into practicing in secret. And she is helped in
these efforts by her age: “The fact that she is so young — she is a millennial,
basically; she is meeting a lot of these people at their level.” What’s more,
through social media she has found acceptance for being approachable and
willing to demystify and interpret the tenets of traditional Yoruba religion.
By using everyday language to explain the culture and encourage people to
embrace it, Wood adds, Ifawemimo is trying to show that it’s a living
tradition. “It’s not ossified. It’s not some ancient unapproachable thing.”
But along with acceptance
has come pushback. Trolled by Christian fanatics, Ifawemimo has been accused of
idol worship and witchcraft and condemned to hell. When asked about these
online attacks, she begins, “I don’t like debates because when I get in the
mood I might not stop.” But she insists that her teachings are all rooted in
authority and based on Ifa verses. Wood sees the assault on Orisha traditions
and other indigenous spiritual practices coming from a “new strain of
Christianity” that is uncompromising and unreceptive to traditionalists — and
says Ifawemimo’s efforts are an important bulwark against cultural erosion.
Culture and religion in
Nigeria form a tightly woven fabric, whether it’s the Islamic call to prayers
at dawn, the songs of congregants reverberating through neighborhoods or
preachers sermonizing at bus stops. Still, traditional spiritual practices are
often shamed for being outdated and get shunted into the shadows. Consequently,
for Ifawemimo to step forward on Twitter and Instagram to reach out to
followers as an Orisha priestess and educator reflects both her bravery and
ingenuity in a religiously polarized space.
She is helped in her
mission to revitalize Yoruba spirituality, she says, by a current thirst to
understand it in its original form before it made its way to the Americas
during the transatlantic slave trade, reaching countries like Cuba, Brazil and
Haiti, where the Santeria and Candomble communities adopted and adapted it.
She believes that its growing visibility in the diaspora has been a driving
force for many on the continent to both learn and reclaim the practice.
It’s a renaissance that
has even found its way into pop-culture iconography — from Beyoncé invoking the
Yoruba tradition in Lemonade (she appears as Oshun, a Yoruba water goddess, in the album’s
second single) to the French-Cuban duo Ibeyi’s chants to the Orisha spirits Oya
and Eleggua on their debut album.
But is there a risk that
references like these could go too far, turning a sacred, age-old culture into
something trendy and commercial?
“A lot of us in the diaspora were these lost children,” says Awo Dosounmu, a mentee of Ifawemimo and devotee of the
Orisha spirit Obatala. “We have had a struggle with our identity for a long
time … So I think that it’s a good thing, whether it’s a trend or not.”
For diasporans who make
pilgrimages back to African countries in a bid to connect with their religious
and cultural roots, Ifawemimo warns that they may be vulnerable to unethical
peddlers of spiritual practice. She has known many who come as students, eager
to learn about their spiritual heritage from a priest or priestess who takes
their money and leaves them with very little in return. “They will not teach
them anything about how to feed your Orisha or connect with your higher self.
They will just initiate them, collect their money and go. They are extorting
them,” she says.
Wood believes Ifawemimo
has much work ahead to educate and connect those who have been separated from
their culture. She says, “For a lot of people that will come to her, it will be
the greatest illumination and epiphany they will ever have in life. We forget
that in Nigeria, we are just souls seeking to make meaning of something, and
for some people that is the path.”
For Ifawemimo, helping
people to openly claim their practice of Yoruba spirituality is as meaningful
and inevitable as going back home. “You cannot run away from your roots,” says
the young sage. “When you have a problem, you will go to your pastor: no
solution. Your imam: no solution. So the last solution — you will come home.”
great article,
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