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208 At the Back of the Black Man's Mind By R. E. Dennett
a grove, where he is always attended by an Aworo Oro Ilare till his return to heaven.
The Aworo would deliver his responses to inquirers. His advent is always looked
forward to with joy, and the public roads and thoroughfares of a town are always
specially cleaned and put in order for his reception, whilst the number of men and
women repairing to the grove for his Oracular assistance is always large. There are such
divinities as Osun, Yemaja, Ososi and Elegbara, &c., which are often consulted, mostly by
women, using sixteen cowries for their consulting signs; and among some of the tribes,
Eluku and Agemo, which also are regarded as possessing much predicting capacity, and
are often resorted to, as their predictions are always esteemed infallible.
An Ogberi or lgberi is one that is not initiated into the mysteries of the religion with
which a Babalawo, from the nature of his office, is expected to be fully acquainted.
The Cola-fruit holds a very important and sacred place. Both it and the tree bearing it
are considered sacred. Every Orisha is worshipped with the fruit, whilst a woodman's
axe should on no account be laid upon the tree. Hence the parable which is commonly
heard, "Orisa ti o yan igi obi li ayo, on-li o da awon iyoukun li Eru- A ki iyo Ida ba Orisa ja;
Ayasebi Eke ati Eyo ni i be igi obi danu o" "The divinity that has chosen the Cola tree as
his specially valued and loved representative has made all other trees subservient to it.
We are not accustomed to draw out the sword to fight a divinity with; and no one but a
liar and a perfidious person ever thinks of cutting down and throwing away a Cola tree."
The fruit is very commonly and extensively employed by men and women all over the
country for purposes of consultation and divination, the majority using it as if they
sought divination through it, each one, from his own god, or as if it were a divinity by
itself, whilst Babalawos and other intelligent persons use it with the idea that divination
is being sought for from Ifa with it. It is commonly split into halves and thrown upon the
ground, as is always done with Opele, the position assumed then by the pieces, either
that in which their faces are turned upwards or that in which they are turned
downwards, or that in which some look upwards and others look downwards at one
and the same time, being understood to declare either good or evil, as the case may be,
care being commonly taken previously to precede this ceremony with a libation of pure
and clean water poured out upon the ground in humble worship of the god Earth, the
parent, after a sort, of all mankind, as from it we have all been brought into existence,
and upon whose surface the split Cola pieces would be thrown for divination.
It is sometimes described in praises by the honourable title of "Baba, abebe oloran ku si
oran, Oran oloran li obi i ku si." "Our father who intercedes in another person's matter
till he dies over it; Cola is commonly put to death over other people's affair," which is
evidently intended for the divinity which it represents, and which refers to his work of
intercession between parties at variance with each other with a view to peace making,
and that death over it which it entails on him, and which, together with a further
division into plugs and into smaller pieces, and an immediate mutual consumption of
them by the parties interested in the peace making, and their respective friends, confirm
and sea] the peace made. It is this circumstance that has given rise to the phrase so
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