The Meaning and Method of Afa Divination among the Northern Nsul&a Ibo

AUSTIN J. SHELTON’ State University of New York

New Pdtz, N . Y.

K. PARK (1963: 195) pointed out that the argument had not been put G forth that the working of social systems among preliterate peoples hinges critically on divination, that “divination has as its regular consequence the elimination of an important source of disorder in social relationships,” adding that “typically, divination is called for in cases of illness and death, and in other life-crises,” situations which “call for decision upon some plan of action which is not easily taken.” The present paper is partly a follow-up of Park’s more general and theoretic study; I wish to present in specific detail certain social functions of afa divination, the importance of the caster of afa, and some of the method of casting and reading of the afa among the northern Nsukka Ibo.

The Nsukka Ibo are primarily an agricultural people who supplement farming in most areas by gathering and in some places by hunting, and like all Ibo many are involved in trade as well. Their social system is broadly gerontocratic, and villages are usually autonomous units divided into exog- amous clans headed by the eldest man or onyisi, who is the keeper of the druu (a group of spear-like staffs constituting an entity related to the ances- tors) which he daily worships. The clans are subdivided into agnatic localized patrilineages, each headed by its eldest man, and the lineages are composed of extended families which are either elementary or compound.

To the Nsukka Ibo the world tends to be a not always clearly defined blend of material and spiritual forces, with the spiritual in the ascendancy insofar as most serious material happenings are ascribed ultimately to the work of the spirits. The spirits, briefly, are of two groups: those who become mortal time after time-the ancestors, who are reincarnated, live, and then die to be reincarnated again, although not always, along with certain trickster spirits such as ogbanje who torment mothers by being born as children who constantly die and are reborn; and those spirits who are always immortal- the high god, Chukwu and his various creative manifestations, and the num- berless intermediary spirits called d k s i . Not personalized, but in a sense part of the magico-spiritual world is undefined pgwu or “medicine.”

I n Ibo societies life expectancy is not great (it averages 40 years if one lives to the age of five), and the people are subject to numerous and rather constant ailments ranging from leprosy and smallpox to the common cold which often is followed by death from combined bronchial pneumonia, ma- laria, and dysentery. Furthermore, matters such as impotency and sterility

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1442 American Anthropologist [67, 1965

are not understood, and are of high frequency because of several combined factors including substandard diet and constant if usually subconscious fear of the unknown and even of the known.

THE AFA AND RELATED PARAPHERNALIA

The words agba’afa (more properly, agb’dja) mean “cast” (agba) and “word” (aja), thus the caster is called onye n’agb’dfa which means “person” (onye) “and,” but here meaning “who” ( f t ’ ) “casts afa.” A common alternate for afa is the word tha or aha, the letters f and h often being interchangeable in Nsukka Igbo.

Physically, the afa consist of four strings or chains each containing four half-shells of the seeds of the bush mango (z&r.u, Irvingia gabonensis) or more commonly of the almond ( d p i p i , Pterocarpus osum). The strings are usually about 12 to 15 inches in length, and the half-shells are more or less evenly spaced on the strings. Commonly, the strings also contain cowrie shells (connected often to the end of each string) or bits of polished stone or sea-shell purchased from traders a t Onitsha, 80 miles to the south, or even buttons. (See Fig. 1) The actually significant parts of the afa strings are the Apipi or ujuru half-seeds; there are four strings and four fipipi on each string because, in part, of the deep significance of the number four among the northern Ibo, which is exemplified by the market days or days of the week. (Consult also Horton 1956: 18-20) The pattern of the Apipi when the strings are cast is the actual afa-and the pattern is formed by the relationship be- tween “open” (half-seeds falling with the interior concavity upwards) or “closed” (with the exterior convexity upwards).

FIG. 1. Afa of Ugwuja Attama, and the Ab2kkWu shell in which they are stored.

SHELTON] Afa Divination among the Ibo 1443

The afa are stored in the shell of a tortoise (Gb8kw.u) along with a small (ca. 4” long by 1/2” diameter) piece of sacred pfp wood (Detarium senegalense) or, more often, wood from one of the several varieties of “life-trees” such as ogbu (Ficus spp.), ijulosi (Newbouldia Zaevis), or ichikgre (Spondias monbin). The wood is used by the afa caster as a means of truth-telling on his own part and on the part of the person seeking advice from the afa, and for des- ignating the patterns of the afa. The storage of the afa in the tortoise shell is also importantly related to this matter of truth. As my own instructor in nfa-reading explained :

In the old days ( id igbd) the afa-caster always used the shell of Tortoise (rhbekwu) to keep the afa, because Tortoise is the way the Ibo people (hdlgbo) learn of many true things, through the stories told about Tortoise in the olden times and even today. And even today a great sacrifice is hb$kwu, because he lives in the earth, and that is the place controlled by Anc (i e., the great cilusi of the earth). Sometimes in the rainy season, Tortoise digs a hole in the earth, because it is soft then, and when the dry season comes he goes into the hole in the earth and he sleeps there, waiting for the rain to come again. People can find the cracked earth in the dry season and they can dig a little bit and find him there, in the earth. People of the old times believed that a story of Tortoise always told a truth, and the afa tell the truth, so they are kept in the house of Tortoise.

The origin of afa divination is unknown by the present writer and by my informants and, for that matter, apparently by ethnologists in general. The Ibo usually say that the afa were cast by the ancestors, or that no one knows when the casting of afa began, although in the village-complex of Oba i t is widely believed that afa divination was introduced a t an undetermined time in the past by pygmy dibeas (medicine-men) called izshie. Afa indeed is re- ferred to often as Cha’izshie “belonging to Ashie”). It is related to other forms of divination among the northern Ibo, the most important of which is ofo “divination,” which is actually less a means of divination than of lie-detection. For example, if two villagers are contesting one another in a matter of witch- craft or thievery, each claiming that the other is a witch or a thief, they might be required to publicly touch the ofQ staff and swear their innocence. If the guilty one falsely swears, the ofp, i t is believed (and it usually happens) will kill him or bring upon him serious mental or physical sickness. Of9 divina- tion is resorted to as an alternative usually after the afa has been attempted but yields no answer to a serious contest of the sort which I have just men- tioned, but strictly speaking it is not divination but the differentiation of the just from the unjust in certain village judicial cases not particularly involving spiritual beings. Divination, in the context of this paper, refers to the deter- mination of that which is not empirically ascertainable and the decision of the correct course of action among alternative possibilities which cannot logically be selected.

THE CASTER OF AFA

Correctly the northern Igbo proverb says that:

&ha ?ZOO nu hbCkwu anigi Afa sitting (in) tortoise shell (does not)

agba onwoya. cast (read) itself.

1444 American Anthropologist [67, 1965

Designated by the afa pattern for &b&kwu (Tortoise), this means several things: as general advice it signifies, “What you have in your mind but do not speak cannot speak by itself, for i t must be spoken.” More important, the proverb refers to the truth of the Tortoise folktales, and is praise for the caster of afa, who reads the afa, and for the afa themselves, which must be cast by the caster in order to have meaning of any kind. Numerous infor- mants, all of them onyisi (clan elders), attama (-dlusi shrine-priests), or other titled men, manifested the same attitude about afa-casters, as in the following reconstructed passage:

The afa-caster is important in every place, not because he is rich or powerful like an izi (“chief”) or like an onyisi or like an attama, or like anybody else, but because all people who are sick must go to him first to discover what spirit made them sick and what they must do to end the sickness. If somebody is bothered by witches who are trying to hurt him, he must go to the afa-caster, even if the person troubled is onyisi or some other big man. If an attama dies, or before he dies, the people must take the sticks of the lineage men and boys to the afa- caster who will find out from the afa which stick belongs to the next attama. For all the un- known things, the people must go to the afa to learn the meaning, and it is only the afa-caster who can read the afa and tell them the truth. If he does not tell them the truth, the afa will kill him.

One becomes a caster of afa by obtaining the paraphernalia, the afa chains being made by an attama or by an older caster of afa (although many attamas are afa-casters) and sold to the aspirant who can convince the maker of his sincerity in learning the art. The tortoise shell can be purchased from a person who has made a special sacrifice of hb&kwu to the Earth-spirit, Ane, but preferably the aspirant would make such a sacrifice himself. With the para- phernalia, the aspirant goes to an afa-caster and inquires if the latter will teach him. If the answer is aflirmative, the aspirant is instructed to return on a given day to begin his study, which, if conducted daily, requires from three to six months of diligent memorization of the secret language and the patterns into which the afa can fall (numbering in the millions, although in practice there are merely several thousand because almost all patterns in reverse or- der or in various parallels have the same meanings), When the aspirant ap- pears for his first lesson, he brings with him a cock, one or two yams, kola nuts, and palm wine as preliminary payment. During the course of study i t is customary for him to bring food and palm-wine gifts now and then, and a t the conclusion of the study he will usually present the afa teacher with a gift of money (from E l to ES).

Such are the preliminary matters; before I give a detailed example of casting afa, it will be useful to explain a few of the functions and importance of afa divination in northern lbo society.

THE SOCIiU, IMPORTANCE OF AGB’AFA

As I mentioned above, afa divination is used for two broadly overlapping purposes in northern Ibo village society: to determine that which cannot be ascertained through empirical means, and to choose the correct course of action among several probable alternatives.

1. Determination of the Unknown-The Ibo world is populated by numbers

SHELTON] A f a Divination among the Ibo 1445

of spiritual beings who are in most instances protectors and helpers of man- kind, but who-somewhat like the Ibo-are very jealous of their rights and reputation. If they are ignored (through failure of worship), slighted (e.g., by being offered a chicken on a festival day when a goat or sheep would be ex- pected), blasphemed (by having “untruth” told about them), or offended (by someone’s stealing from a person under the protection of the spirit, or by witchcraft being practiced against a human “child” of the spirit, etc.), they will promptly retaliate by bringing disease, madness, low productivity of crops, infertility of women, and other troubles, including death, to the culprit guilty of the wrong. Consequently, when misfortune strikes the Ibo village, the person first consulted is the afa-diviner, because no one can use logic or even common sense to understand why a misfortune has fallen when it is not of the usual, anticipated sort. The afa will tell which particular spirit has brought the calamity, possibly tell precisely the motives of the spirit, and list the types and amounts of sacrifices required to appease the spirit. A case to illustrate broadly the function of afa in ascertaining the unknown involves the movement of the majority of the people of Umu Iny&r& in ImilikCnu from their original residential area close to their stream to an area some two miles away, and a change of placement of compounds from the originally closely- packed village to a community in which at present the compounds are widely separated, with broad paths running among them. The following account was furnished me by a group of elders, including atturnas, of Umu Iny&r&:

Iyi’ Awq (the village dlusi) owns Umu Iny&r&, and about thirty years ago she made the people move to the present place in Imilike. The people used to live along the stream itself, but a pestilence came upon them, and full grown men were dying off rapidly, and grown women, SO the old men had to consult ogba’dha (onye n’ugb’dja), and the afa said that Iyi Awo had de- scended upon them because of her mightness, not because the people of the clan did something bad. There was a narrow path through the village leading to her stream, and Iyi Aw!, was so powerful that she moved along the path and killed people who crowded her way to the stream. So when the people moved to their present place, they built their houses with broad paths and much room, so that when Iyi Awo goes through the village she has plenty of room.

In almost all kinds of sickness, the victim or his closest blood relative will consult the afa, although practical steps might a t the same time be taken. For example, if a man shows the signs of smallpox (akr6k@dkpd), he goes to the afa to learn what caused i t and what he must do to rid himself of the scourge, but a t the same time he is isolated from the rest of the people, who know well that the disease is contagious. Similarly, if a pregnant woman be- comes sick, experiences unnatural discharges, or otherwise is distressed, the afa are requested to tell which ilusi can be given sacrifices in order to help the woman to have an easy delivery and a healthy baby, although the woman also practices some home medication.

Mental distress is often considered to be brought on a person by a spirit and can be lifted by sacrifices. One day at the shrine of Okpo in Imilikani I observed an aged woman arrive with a trussed-up dog, two yams, palm oil, a calabash of palm wine, kola nuts, and black salt. Her offering was to Okpo rather than to the Blusi offspring of this major ilusi, and when she explained

1446 A merican Anthropologist [67, 1965

her situation to the Attama, who would immediately afterwards relay her prayers to the spirit, she said:

I am 6 k i e -, and my home is at Obollo’&kC. I had many children, but they all died. One son did not die. He lived, and when he became a young man saving for his bride-price, he died. I went to ogba’bha and the dha said that Chukwu (the high god) wanted him. The 6ha said I did nothing wrong. That was four moons ago. But my son’s spirit did not go to the place of the dead. Every night his ghost comes into my head and he looks very sad, and sometimes he talks, and sometimes he sweats from his farm work, and sometimes he is like he was when he was a small baby. I can never sleep, because his ghost did not go to the place of the dead. I went to ogba’ba and this time the &a said that my son did not want to go to the place of the dead, and that I should carry good things to Okpo and ask Okpo to tell my son that he is dead and he must join the other people there. So I bring these good things to Okpo to ask for her help.

Significant about this case of mental distress and cases of actual illness is that without having consulted the afa, none of the sufferers would know what to do. If one were to attempt a guess about the identity of a spirit which brought on an affliction or which could otherwise alleviate distress, one could sacrifice daily for a lifetime and perhaps never satisfy the proper spirit who would meantime, according to Ibo belief, bring even greater calamities to the vic- tim. The afa is, therefore, the means of determining what cannot be arrived at either through logic or even chance.

Cases of infertility or impotency are similarly handled. The individual goes to the afa-diviner to learn why she cannot bear children, and what she can do to become fertile. As Ugwuja Attama of Ow&ri-@z&Qba told me,

From the afa it can be told if Ntiy or some other dlusi wants something, so a barren woman or even a man comes and asks to see if one of the spirits can be found who can help to get a baby; so the afa is cast to discover which spirit will help the people get a baby from Chukwu, and how many months it will take for the baby to come. The number of months pass, and if the spirit helps the people to get a baby, the father offers the sacrifice that he promised -a goat or a sheep, or whatever the afa told him the spirit wanted. Sometimes the afa might tell the woman that she must become inyiama (devotee of the fertility &lusi named Inyiama) if the spirit helps her to get a baby, so when the baby comes, she installs her own inyiama shrine in her house and she follows the prohibitions for inyiama.

The afa are also necessary for making certain important identifications, such as the naming of a successor to an attama (shrine-priest), the identifica- tion of a returned ancestor, and the spirit-ownership of an albino. Among the Nsukka Ibo the shrine-priest, who is the intermediary between the &lusi and the villagers, is the aftama (lit., “Lord” of “spirits”), a position which is semi-hereditary, retained by a particular patrilineage. This results from the fact that the Igala conquered Nsukka in the past and placed an Igala shrine- priest in each village as the agent in control of the non-ancestral division of Ibo religion. When a successor to an attama must be chosen, which sometimes occurs while an attama is alive, and sometimes shortly after his death, the candidates consist of those men of his lineage who have been nominated through dreams, in which they felt or heard the & h i calling them, and through decisions of the lineage elders. The candidates each bring a small, marked stick to the elder, who carries the group of sticks to the afa-caster, instructing him to see which person the afa wants to be the next attama. Casting is then

SHELTON] Afa Divination among the 160 1447

conducted until one of the particular sticks is definitely singled out-all without the diviner’s knowledge of the persons to whom the sticks refer- and the new attama is thus selected. I n this manner an individual essential in the maintenance of social cohesion in a village is chosen by means which can furnish no excuse for social disorder through aroused jealousies among candidates or supporters of candidates for the attamaship.

The individual referred to as onye lalu madu is the returned ancestor among the Nsukka Ibo-a child is born, and people might suspect because of certain physical features or character traits that the child is a particular dead ancestor who has been reincarnated. I n such a case, the parents take the child to onye n’agb’gfa to have the afa identify which particular ancestor has returned, or to verify their belief. In some cases the afa will indicate that the child is not actually a returned ancestor (rarely, however), or is one from such a distant past that he cannot be named precisely (more common). I n many cases, however, identification will be more exact. The following, for example, was told me by the onyisi of Amadkwa Clan of Umu’hkaka in IhC’Nsukka: “My father is ludlomp.” (ludlo= “ancestor”; mp= “my”) This means that he, the onyisi, would be called onye ludlogb (“person ancestor is”), and means that his own father is his particular ancestor or, considered op- positely, that he is a reincarnation of his own father. This was determined when he was an infant; his father died before he was born, and when he was less than three years of age he began to manifest traits of his father, so his mother took him to the caster of afa, and the onyisi’s ancestral identity was thus established.

Albinism is fairly common among the Ibo (although perhaps simply more noticeable than among Europeans), and is something of an important occur- rence: when an albino is born, the people consider the child to be actually the offspring or slave of some Blusi. According to Attama Iyi’Akpala of Umu Rlkpume in Oba:

Those people are called pbanaL and the name of the dlusi to whom they belong, because whenever one of these strange children is born to a black mother and black father it is because an dlusi did it, and the Obanzd must be returned to the Blusi. An Obanz6 can be called Oband Iyi’Akpala, and that means: Obanz6 who belongs to Iyi’Akpala. To find out which dlusi sent the banzC and wants it back, we must go to the afa, and the afa will then tell thename of the dlusi, so the parents can give the ObanzC, who is ost2 (i.e., slave), back to the spirit who owns it.

2. Deciding the Correct Course of Events-This second broad category of the social function of afa is obviously related to the first, for it, too, concerns the determination of the spiritual or the otherwise unknown and unknowable. In a case of thievery or loss of goods, for example, the victim will first go to the afa-diviner to see what must be done. As Attama Ukwu’gwu of Ujobo Obi’gbo Village in Oba explained, “the afa might tell the man that he must make a sacrifice to one Blusi, Ukwu’gwu or some other one, or it might just tell him that he must go to his home and pray to Chukwu for recovery of his property. The man who reads the afa is very important in discovering thieves, because he can read the things of the afa, which knows all the things that

1448 American Alzthropologist [67, 1965

men do not know.” Attama Iyi’Akpala of Umu Mkpume, when asked about the matter of theft, said:

When a man has some things stolen, he comes to me and tells me about it, and then we go to the afa-caster. If the afa say that the man must sacrifice to Iyi’Akpala, the man will do it, and this will make Iyi’Akpala angry a t the thief, and she sends Ah&& (the eldest “daughter”- spirit of the parent dlusi) to find the thief. Abed then goes a t night, because she is a night- spirit (mmuo-dwyasd). No one can see her, because she is a spirit and invisible, but the man knows she has come to him, and she says he must return the stolen goods or he will suffer bad things. The thief then goes to the afa-caster to see which dlusi wants things from him so that he will be free from his wrong.

On this same subject, Attama Okpo of Imilikani explained:

A person might be suffering from thieves, so he will go to ogba’dha, and the dha will tell him that he must install an AbCr& shrine of his own in his compound to protect him from thieves. So he will go to the big AbCrC called Abiri’me Oy (“AbCrC of Oye Market” in Imili- kani) and remove a small piece of cloth, make his sacrifices for AbCrC, and erect his own shrine by his compound.

Another major source of worry is that of witchcraft. If a man feels that witchcraft is being exercized against him, which might be his personal attempt to empirically determine the cause of misfortunes, he will normally go im- mediately to the afa-caster. The afa might indicate that no witch is bothering him, but rather an Blusi who either simply wants an offering from him or who has been somehow offended by him, and will inform him which Blusi wants what particular sacrifice. On the other hand, the afa might indeed indicate that a witch is bothering him, and i t will indicate the name of the Blusi whose help he should obtain in combatting the evil force. The afa further will in- variably suggest that the victim seek the help of a dibea (medicine-man), too-chiefly because the caster will continue casting the strings until qgwu (“medicine”) appears in the afa, for the diviner knows very well that the victim requires anti-witchcraft medicine which can be obtained only from a dibea.

Judicial cases are not, precisely speaking, L‘solved” by the afa, although part of judicial proceedings involves afa. After the elders have reached a decision and have delivered their verdict on a case, the afa-caster is sum- moned to have the afa determine the particular sacrifice required of the plaintiff and of the defendant. Once the sacrifice is made, the judicial matter is settled, but the elders alone cannot announce what the sacrifice must be unless the case falls into a particular category in which sacrifices are cus- tomarily the same.

These, then, are a few examples of the function of the afa in the northern Ibo village, although they are not all the examples one could draw upon, for afa are cast in the making of all important village decisions. Without the afa, the people would be completely a t the mercy of myriads of potentially and often actually antagonistic forces and powers. The continuing influence of the afa, despite education, is suggested by the fact that in just one of the numerous villages surrounding the University of Nigeria a t Nsukka, during the period from October, 1962, to May, 1963, a total of 39 different university

SHELTON] Afa Divination among the Ibo 1449

students came to one of the two casters of afa. Other students went to the other caster, and to casters in other villages, but I have no actual figures about these.

THE METHOD OF AFA-DIVINATION: ONE CASE

A villager with a serious problem comes to the caster of afa, makes his usual greetings to the diviner and his family who might be about, and then declares: “I come for onye n’agb’ifa to read the afa for me.” He then sits or squats down across from the caster, who takes out his tortoise shell, shakes out the beads and the small stick, and places the shell aside. The caster then picks up the strings and throws them out, one string a t a time, so that they lie in parallel rows, the ends of the strings toward the caster and the suppli- cant. The caster then taps each set of afa with the stick, and then hands the stick with his right hand to the supplicant, who holds i t in his right hand and asks, “What brought my sickness?” or whatever might be the source of his problem or the means of alleviating it. The supplicant then returns the stick to the caster, who commences to cast the strings of afa.

In casting, the diviner follows a prescribed pattern: Strings No. 1 and No. 3 are cast simultaneously, No. 1 held in the right hand, No. 3 in the left, the strings being drawn toward the caster, raised upwards in a curve and cast straight outward so that the ends of the strings fall toward the supplicant. Then Strings No. 2 and No. 4 are cast in the same way. After all four strings have been cast, the afa can be read, and during the reading the caster touches the significantly-patterned hpipi with the stick, saying, “Ka, n’ka” (“This, and this”) or n’ka, n’ka, n’ka, following such indication of the patterns with the “word” of the afa, although he will not always speak the word, and sometimes he will tap the patterns and simply stare a t the afa and then cast again without a comment. The afa “word” is in secret language rather than in ordinary Igbo, and it cannot be understood by the supplicant, so although the caster speaks the secret word he must translate it-not into Igbo equiva- lents-but into the appropriate advice for the supplicant. I n the following illustration of the method of afa-casting, I will translate into Igbo (and into English) only those few terms from the secret language necessary to clarify my explanation of the method of afa-divination.2 In the charts below, each representing a single cast of the afa, the capital 0 stands for an “open” ipipi, and C refers to a “closed” one. The supplicant’s problem is one of constant serious sickness-L‘chest-pain’’ which probably was recurrent bronchitis, common in the rainy season.

Cast No. I

1 2 3 4 a. 0 C C 0 b . 0 0 0 0 C. 0 0 c 0 d 0 C 0 c

1450 Americai~ Anllaropologisl

Meaning: all in line a.

1+2=obi ogoli 2$3=ogoli OSC 3+4=osC !ha. In Igbo this is Igp’uke, “make sacrifice” to “the living.”

[67, 1965

Instruction by afa-diviner to supplicant: “You will have to go to your home and kill some things and bring them out with other food for your people.”

Cast No. 2

1 2 3 4 a. 0 0 C 0 b. 0 C C C C. C 0 0 0 d. 0 0 0 0

Meaning:

la+2a= oturl’&tt 2a+4a=LtC abp. This refers to Oye day, one of the four days of the Ibo week. 3a+4a=uhu CtC. In Igho this is i kash i , or cocoyam. 2b+3a=&tC uhs

Instruction: “On Oye day you must bring the foods to your people. One of the foods is ;kashi.”

Cast No. 3

1 2 3 4 a. c 0 C C I>. c C c 0 C. c 0 C 0 d. 0 C 0 0

Meaning: all in line a.

1+2=pbara ohu. In Igbo this is &manyu, or palm wine. 2+3=ohzi’pbera. In Igbo this is mlyyi, or blood. 2+4=ohu ogutl. In Igbo, this is uyp, or happiness.

Instruction: “You must take palm wine and give it to the spirit that brings your sickness, and you must kill something for it, so it has blood. When you do these things, you will be happy.”

Note: At this stage, two major problems have occurred, and must be solved by the afa: (1) precisely who or what is the spirit causing the suppli- cant’s sickness, and (2) what is the nature of the blood sacrifice.

Cast No. 4 (See Fig. 2)

1 2 3 4 a. C C C 0 b. 0 0 C 0 C. C 0 C C d. 0 0 0 C

Meaning:

la+Za=ost ogutt. In Igho this is Chi, the emanation of Chukwu, the high god. 2a+3a=ijitd pbara. In Igbo this is manu, or palm oil. 2a+4c=ijitC’gale. In Igbo this is enp, or meat. 3a+4c =pbara Zggale. In Igbo this means gi tchezona, suggesting “do not forget.”

Instruction: “The ufa says that it is Chi whom you have offended. On an Oye day, Chi wants

SHELTON] Afa Divination among the Ibo 1451 nkushi and palm wine and blood from an animal, and palm oil and meat from the animal, too. You must not forget these things to give to Chi a t the onzlchi (lit., “mouth” of “Chi,” or altar to Chi) in your house, and to give good things to your people.”

Cast No . 5

1 2 3 a. C 0 0 b. C 0 0 C . 0 C 0 d. C 0 0

Meaning: all non-functional in relation to the problem.

la+2c=ek6 oture‘ 2a+3a= oturL’t?& 3a+4a=oblpbard

Cast No. 6

1 2 3 a. C C C b. C 0 0 C. C 0 0 d. C 0 C

Meaning: all in line a. All non-functional.

1 +2 = akwd’gwtk. 1+3 = akwd’goli. 1+4=akwu 1.4. 2+4=ijite ktt?.

FIG. 2. Afu of author, of d p i p i seeds and cowries, in pattern for ose‘ ugzltd. See chart of Cast No. 4.

1452 A mericaiz A iztlzropologisl [67, 1965

FIG. 3. A/a in pattern of pkara elurrikpa. See chart of Cast No. 15.

Sote: the problem still existing is the need to identify the particular animal for the blood sacrifice. I n Cast No. 5 above, the pattern l a f 2 c was ek6 oturi, which in Igbo means azp or fish; this is considered unsuitable for the blood and meat sacrifice, because the Ibo consider the fish not to be a bleeding animal. The afa is cast eight more times without furnishing any significant information relating to the particular problem of identifying the kind of ani- nial required for the sacrifice by the supplicant to his Chi. On the fifteenth cast, however, a pattern of some significance occurs:

Cast No. I 5 (See Fig. 3 ) 1 2 3

a. 0 C C b. C 0 C C . C C 0 d. C C C

Meaning: all in line a. 1 +2 = pkara elzlrzikfia. This occasions the proverb beIow. 2+3 = eturizkpu 2ka. 3+4=2ka pbara. 1+4 = 6kara !bare. 2+4=eturaikpa qbara.

Instruction: “Ikayi ma gi anya (Observe though your eye onwogi, ma obugi

yourselves, spirit still lives and

4 C C C 0

2li2 buries

abuzi.” cricket)

SHELTON] Aja Divination among the Ibo 1453

Note: I k a y i ma gi’anya refers to common sense of intelligence, and the prov- erb means, “No matter how intelligent you may be, you can never bury yourself-with the exception of the cricket, who can bury himself and yet live.” Thus the diviner explains to the supplicant: “You must do the things the afa tells you to do, and you will become more intelligent by it.”

Ten more casts are made, but still the particular animal for the blood sacrifice is not revealed by the afa. Finally, the revelation occurs:

Cast No. 26 (See Fig. 4) 1 2 3 4

a . C 0 0 0 11 c c C 0 C. C 0 0 c d. C C c c

Meaning: la+2a = akwd’lzu. 3b+k = Q/U $gal&. la+4d=akzo Zgul&. In Igho this is d l z m (ewe) or &b$le (ram).

Instruction: “The afa has told the kind of animal your Chi wants. I t is a sheep. You must take the sheep to your onuchi and sacrifice it there, along with the other things, and give them to Chi and to your people.”

With this, the supplicant makes a payment to the diviner, thanks him for having read the afa, and departs for his home, where he will immediately prepare for the sacrifices which, presumably, will remove the sickness from him.

FIG. 4. Afa in pattern of akwo &ale. See chart of Cast No. 26.

1454 A vnerican Anthropologist [67, 1965

CONCLUSION

Afa divination among the northern Ibo is the determination of that which is not empirically ascertainable and the decision of the correct course of action among alternative possibilities which cannot logically be chosen. It has a function analogous to that described by Park (1963:109) insofar as it take4 the need for decision-making out of the client’s hands. Afa divination is t o a large extent mechanical, constantly establishing the existence of the nu- merous spiritual beings inhabiting the Ibo world, and removing responsibil- ity from the society or its members to make decisions about the guilt and punishment of most wrongdoers. Thus it constantly re-establishes the legiti- macy of customary law, social order, especially regarding gerontocracy which depends strong11 upon ancestralism and chi-reincarnation, and Blusi worship and ritual.

Afs divination at first glance appears to be a system of chance, the diviner in certain respects being a (‘spinner of a wheel of fate, which is wiser than any human judge” (Park 1963:198), but (‘chance” must be qualified by the facts that (1) the possible diagnoses or courses of action or responses indicated by the afa are not limitless, and especially (2) in cases such as the determina- tion of that spirit which can help one fend off witches the caster exercises definite control often by continuing the casting until what he knows is ap- propriate advice appears in the afa. Turner’s recent statement of the truism that “the observation of diviners a t work and the study of their apparatus reveal that in African societies beliefs may include a multiplicity of types of mystiral evildoers, who practise a wide variety of ways of causing mystical harm” (1964:338) is germane here, but i t should never be supposed that +‘multiplicity” is endless or that purely chance solutions are all that the afa can offer. Where the word “probability” is apropos in relation to afa divination is in the nature of each particular case brought before the caster: each case will possess a number of precedents which will act as probability guides to the caster. If, for example, a barren woman approaches the caster, the latter knows that, as a rule, the spirits who most often help in such cases are Inyiama or the parent Blusi or Chukwu, the high god; the most probable cause of the woman’s distress is thus assumed to be some offense against or neglect of one or more of these spirits. So if the afa indicates a different spirit entirely- such as the masculine Onumuno, the elder brother of Inyiama-the casting will not necessarily halt a t that point, for Onumuno’s antagonism will nor- mally be considered a result of hie anger a t the neglect of one of his fellow spirits more closely concerned with matters of fertility than he is. The caster will usually continue casting until the reason for Onumuno’s anger is re- vealed, and this reason will appear as some offense against one of the spirit “specialists” in fertility.

Through his function rather than because of his personal reputation, the raster of afa is undoubtedly the most important person in the northern Iho village, for virtually all life-crises require his services ksofar as such crises

SHELTON] Afa Divination among the Ibo 1455

are believed to be caused by the Alusi or other beings or forces who cannot be reached or understood through material means or through logical method. The afa in the hands of the caster is thus considered to be what one might call a “knower of secret things,” or an omniscient entity of sorts which bridges the gap between the unknown and those people who must know; it is the “voice” of the spirits and of Chukwu, the high god, the preliminary means of solacing the emotional11 distressed, the discoverer of abominators and thieves, the physician prescribing the correct therapy for illness, the agent aiding elders and others in solving innumerable problems of life with a degree of accepted objectivity impossible for the people to attain otherwise.

NOTES

This study is a result of the author’s field work among the northern Ibo of Nsukka Division, Eastern Nigeria, from 1961 to July, 1964. Vowel pronunciation is that of French. The following symbols are used: h =nasalized; p =sound of aw, as in paw; u=slightly shorter than sound of zl in pllt .

The author is an initiated afa-caster, although only a neophyte in comparison with Ibo practitioners. Important in the learning of afa-divination is the necessity of maintaining the secrecy of the art, which is socially too important to be put to the risk of misuse by Ibo (fortu- nately few in number) who might nish to prey on their less-educated fellows.

REFERENCES CITED HORTON, W. R. G.

1956 God, man, and the land in a Northern Ibo Village-Group. Africa XXVI: 17-.28. PARK, G. K.

1963 Divination and its social contexts. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XCIII, Part 2 (July-Dec.), 195-209.

1964 Witchcraft and sorcery: taxonomy versus dynamics. Africa XXXIV:314-325. TURNER, V. W.