In this response on ancient Yoruba’s number system (the 256 Odu coding), I explained that had Africans (within the region of sub-Sahara) invented writing at scale, most of the things associated with deep spirituality would have been accepted as science and a component of natural philosophy. But with knowledge passed from generation to generation orally, there were limited ways to develop, challenge and advance fundamental concepts. Consequently, anything future generations could not understand was explained away with “spirituality”. Before Gottfried Leibniz invented the binary system as explained in his famous l’Arithmétique Binaire, the Ifa Odu had existed for centuries, even before the reign of Oduduwa in the 7th century AD.
Read the comment here and my response below
My Response: The Odu number system can be looked at from two angles: spiritual and scientific. The Yorubas because of lack of writing invention kept the spiritual but lost the scientific. If you look at the earliest works of Pythagoras, you would accuse him of serving Athena, the Greek goddess of knowledge. But because he wrote and explained, we accepted most as the basis of natural philosophy. Without writing, it would be folklores as with Yoruba’s Odu coding.
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al-Khwarizmi – the father of algebra — was a highly religious man. He ran the house of wisdom and was a devout religious man in Baghdad. But as he started writing, he explained what later became the foundation of algebra even though he was known as the puzzle solver in Mecca and Medina.
My point is this: had the Yorubas invented writing, the Odu coding could have entered the large sphere of natural philosophy and demystified spirituality. Think about it: if Euclid had not written his works on geometry, it would have been all spiritual to many. In FUTO, students call ODE [ordinary differential equation] “o di egwu” which in Igbo means something mystical and challenging.
Tell the high priest to write what he does as an equation, some spirituality will evolve to science!
Comment on LinkedIn Feed
Comment 1: Indeed, we call on historians and researchers of like-minded to first unravel the History of Yoruba from unlettered time to modern time. The present folklore and taboo are unacceptable. Then Odu-Ifa Corpuscle is a body of knowledge to be studied scientifically. When I was in China, there was an advert where an institute was looking for a core Odu-Ifa practitioner to collaborate to study along with Taoism. But, back at home, we relegate this body of knowledge as archaic.
Comment 2: Odu ifa has been in existence for many centuries. It survived colonialism, and up till today it’s still being used in many countries like Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago; the Carribbean generally.
The bottom line is that what is not written or documented, no matter how good or powerful cannot be developed, efficiently utilized and transferred. This is where Africa largely missed it.
Even, in Christianity, God’s spoken words had to be written down (on tablets, scrolls etc), and that is why it can be transferred, developed, efficiently utilized and even made more powerful. Even Jesus would say ‘For it is written’…
The same thing is happening with so many herbal and alternative remedies that are all over the place. I am yet to come across any compendium for these local solutions.. Sadly, Africans perish with their knowledge and discoveries instead of passing it on..
For Odu Ifa, I know there have been some works on it by some Nigerian scholars and professors but the question is ‘are Nigeria youths willing to learn it, will parents allow their kids to learn it?’ These are the things that the Chinese treasure so much and keep teaching their children from inception, and they are better for it.
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What we have noticed in the course of civilization is that some groups would need to decrease or discount others, in order to advance their own ideology and narratives. We are seeing same in geopolitics, religion, international trade, education, just about everything.
Each race or tribe has something to teach others, but the first impediment is usually communication or lack of proper documentation, and once you allow others to tell your story, you are finished.
Nothing beats a liberated mind, there’s no pity party in it, because it can always question things and tell its own stories, with the originality and uniqueness that go with it.
The legendary writer of global renown, Chinua Achebe once said “Until the Lion start telling their story, the story about the hunt will always glorify the hunter” This has been the major challenge confronting the African nations and society . Inspite of the no of publications of African Herbal discoveries, very few indeed have been the outcome. This fact of Colonialism is deeper than imagined, it includes mental reconstruction and mind invasion.