Questions to Bàbá Oduduwa: About the Otá/stone that is fetched from the river, ancient funeral rites, and birth of the cult of Òrìṣà

Questions to Bàbá Oduduwa: About the Otá/stone that is fetched from the river, ancient funeral rites, and birth of the cult of Òrìṣà

Ẹgbẹ‌ Ódùn Olọ‌fin - The Spiritual Family of the Secret of Olofin.

Awo I: About the Ota/stone or secret of the river in ceremony of consecration of Òòşà: There are many doubts about that stone that the new Ìyawo/Akapo looks for in the river. Does that stone eat, and with whom does it eat?

Bàbá Odùdúwà answers: That stone or Ota is looked for in ILE ODO = the river, with motive of ancient practices, where one went to look for the spirit of an ancestor in the river. After someone died, he would be cremated and his ashes would be poured into the sacred mountain where one of the sacred rivers flowed. After a term of 3 months, a close relative of the deceased goes to the mouth of the river to pick up a stone that has the spiritual essence of his relative, of his ancestor, to take him back home. The Òrìşà is born of that Ota = stone in which the consciousness of those ancestors was deposited and began to work miracles. This is how the cult to the Òrìşà arose, and this is still carried out in the Lukumi tradition. The secret of the river is carried out in commemoration of all those ancestors who left their traces in the river, that is why the deity that must be asked for permission to initiate someone in the tradition of Òòşà is Ìyá Oshun. The Ota - the stone or what is taken from the river, must live in a clay jar on the side of the Òrìşà Alagbatori or the ruling Òrìşà of that person.

That Ota/stone eats Eje when it begins to perform miracles. In the Yorùbá pantheon it is considered that there are 401 Òrìşà Deities, plus 200 aspects of ÈŞÙ (total of 601 spiritual powers ). It was considered that until then all the Òrìşà had arisen, and manifested in ILÉ (Earth), remembering what Òrìşà means, which are the Consciousnesses that were chosen to represent the Irúnmọle in ILÉ (Earth), turned into Òrìşà. However, the reality of that is that all the persons who are initiated into the tradition, regardless of who is, if we could speak of it that way, its “ramification”, are Òrìşà in potential. That means that that practice should not have ended, because the deities manifest according to that preponderance that they have over the manifestation of the basic aspects in the life of, first, those who descend from oneself,

All people are Òrìşà, the Òrìşà is not finished, the Òrìşà continues to produce. It is only enough to understand the nature of this tradition in which, if we could give it a term, it could be considered pantheistic.

Everything possesses a spirit (Emi), everything possesses a consciousness (Orí). It was man who developed the capacity. The soul is the primordial matter from which the spirit emerges. There is one soul, many spirits arising from the same soul, it is known as Ẹgbẹ Ọrun (Collective Soul).

This practice arises from it, and it arises from ancestral practices. It is necessary to remember that it arises from the poems, from the Pataki (stories). Up to what moment is a burial (grave) created? I am going to introduce a little historical question, and then return to the philosophical aspect of the tradition.

It is not known for sure at what moment mankind adopted an ancestral consciousness or intelligence, in what sense? There are archaeological sites, one of the oldest, was of a child in Africa who was buried in some caves, in the southeastern part of Africa. This vestige is approximately 70 to 80,000 years old. The child or creature was found on a pillow made by the natives of that land at that time, and it is speculated that at that time man had developed that intelligence or consciousness. However, based on the verses of Òrìşà and Ifá, we know that before burial as such existed, people who died were cremated, it was one of the most common practices.

The burial arises until Ìrosùn and until Òdí, far away in time to the emergence of the practice of burial of corpses, the most appropriate was the cremation to be able to completely transform the body, and to fulfill the function to create potential Òrìşà. In the Yorùbá, it is a taboo to use Égún icons (bones of the dead, ancestors) for the formation of Òrìşà icons.

Ifalenu: That is, to put the bone of some dead person as part of the icon of ỌLỌKUN, as certain Afro-Cuban Babalawo do.

Odùdúwà: And the reason comes from here.

 It is Ota or Stone, it is the vestige that remains of those ancient practices of going to look for the ancestors in the river. Both in the cosmovision of Ifá and Òrìşà, it is known that the ancestors manifest themselves through aspects of nature. Unlike the Lukumi, in Yorùbá/Ìşẹ‌şẹ Traditionalism there are Deities that are venerated through objects, icons, and not necessarily through Ota or Stone. This comes from ancient customs, where it was considered that people deposited energy or certain energy in their belongings, and the icons of Òrìşà arise, and the icons of Ifá arise. But, the preponderant Òrìşà in life and the human path were manifested through immortality - Arikú or Aikú, those who do not die. Immortality was represented in Ota/stone, which does not get damaged, does not get corrupted and does not get destroyed naturally.

That is why in this practice of searching for the secret of the river or Ilé odó, it is for this reason that the Oshun Deity is perfectly imperfect and evolutionary. Oshun, the Deity that speaks of the cycle of transformation, any person that upon death is cremated and his remains turned into the river, sooner or later will achieve immortality, since all the minerals that compose the human body will sooner or later be transformed into Ota/stone, and that is where immortality is found and achieved.

Awo I: Does this stone go in the jar, does it go with water or without water?

Odùdúwà: It depends. That stone or Ota should be consulted to see if it is a fluvial or land Deity.

If it is a fluvial Deity of water, it has to live in water.

 If it is an earth Deity, it has to live dry. That would be the difference of water Deities, as in our case Yemaya, Oshun, Ọba, for example.

 From there comes the practice in the Afro-Cuban Lukumi system. Where Yemaya, Oshun and other diverse Deities live with water inside their icons. For that reason, by the nature of their being, they are fluvial, Deities of water.

 A vision that is not properly held is with Oya, unlike what is commonly believed in the Afro-Cuban Lukumi tradition, Oya is a fluvial Deity of water, since in Africa, there is even a river dedicated to Oya, the Oya River, the Niger River. Clarifying, putting light on the path.

 If we visualize that aspect, Oya would also have to live in water, because it is fluvial. However, what is important within the cult of any Deity will be the manifestation of immortality obtained through the icons. There are certain lines in Africa where Ọrúnmìlà is not represented, neither in the Íşẹ‌fá/Awofákán and Ikofá, nor in Ìtẹ‌fá, is any Ota stone placed and its icon. They only deliver the sacred seeds of Ìkín and the icons corresponding to the initiation, but they do not place an Ota inside the jar or icon.

The same can be seen manifested in some other Òrìşà Deities, such as Ògún, which is consecrated only on a metal mound and to which no Ota or stone is placed.

 It is to be remembered that Ògún, before he owned metals, he owned wood, one of the first receptacles of Ògún was based on wood and not on metal. Later he was given or consecrated in metal pieces which represent immortality, unlike wood which decays and deteriorates, rots.

 And so in various Deities, Ota stones are not placed on them, icons of the Deity are placed on them.

Ifalenu: For example, like Ọbàtálá, certain traditionalist Yoruba lineages do not put stones inside the icon of Ọbàtálá, but they put ivory in it.