A Yoruba Divination Tray, "opon-ifa" Lot n° 31

Oracle board, "opon Ifa" Yoruba-Nago, Benin Ohne Sockel / without base wood. W 48 cm. Provenance: - Swiss private collection, Geneva. - HDV Piguet, Geneva (05.06.2023, lot 3037). Throughout the Yoruba region, oracle consultations with and by ifa priests are an important institution. Those seeking help turn to the clergyman for advice in personal or higher matters. During the questioning, the priest strikes the board with a knocker to attract the attention of orunmila, the deity to whom the request for divination is addressed. He then throws palm nuts according to a precisely prescribed pattern. The oracle board opon-ifa is thereby a kind of note surface for throwing combinations to be interpreted later. Characteristic of the ifa boards are their flat shape and the edge carved with figures and geometric patterns. The face on the edge of the board, here flanked by two lidded containers, represents eshu, who also officiates as messenger of the gods. Here it is a lid of a container called "opon igede Ifa" (missing) in which babalawo called priests also kept divination utensils for the ifa oracle (including a bell, an oracle stick, 16 sacred fruit seeds of a palm tree or, alternatively, a divination chain, etc.). Further reading: Abiodun, Rowland / Drewal, Henry / Pemberton, John (1991). Yoruba art and aesthetics in Nigeria. Zurich: Museum Rietberg. CHF 400 / 800