尼日利亞的艾法預言體系

Ifa divination system of Nigeria took advantage of an extensive corpus of texts and literatures and was done by the Yoruba. The Yoruba live in West Africa， with a population of 15 to 20 million. The word Ifa originated from a legendary figure called Ifa or Orunmila， who was seen by the Yoruba as the origin of deity of wisdom and the development of wisdom. During the twelfth Century， the city of Ile-Ife， located in the Osun region of the South-west of Nigeria， became the social and political center of the society. In the Americas and Caribbean， the tradition was also practiced by the African diaspora.

Compared with other divination ways in the region which use the wizards’ ability， Ifa does not rely on people with witchcraft， but on a symbol system which needs to be deciphered by the diviner. The diviner is called Ifa or Babalawos， whose literal meaning is “the priest’s father”. Ifa divination system is to be applied at any time that the individual or the collective needs to make an important decision.

尼日利亞的艾法預言體系利用了廣泛的文集和文獻，由約魯巴人來進行。約魯巴人居住在西非，人口大約有1，500萬到2，000萬。艾法這個詞源于一個叫艾法或叫歐倫米拉的傳奇形象，他被約魯巴人視為智慧之神和智慧發展的來源。12世紀時期，尼日利亞西南部奧孫斯瑞特地區的艾阿城成為這個社會的文化和政治中心。在美洲和加勒比地區，這項傳統由那些來自非洲的散居國外的人傳襲。

與這個地區使用巫師能力的其他預言方式相比，艾法預言不依賴有巫術的人，而是依賴一個由占卜的人來解釋的符號系統。這個占卜的人叫艾法或巴巴拉臥，字面意思為牧師之父。艾法預言系統被應用在任何要做出個人或集體的重大決定之時。

The anthology of Ifa is called odu， which has 256 volumes in total. Every volume is subdivided into many stanzas called ese. The number of ese is unknown due to its continuous increasing. Every odu and about 800 eses and every odu has a special signal， which is decided by the Babalawos in a ceremony through palm-nuts and a divination chain. The ese， as the most important part of the Ifa divination， is chanted by a wizard in poetic language. The ese reflects the history， language， religion and contemporary social issues of Yoruba. The knowledge of Ifa has been retained by these wizards and the Yoruba society.

艾法的文集叫做歐度，共256卷，每卷細分成許多詩節，叫做艾西。艾西的數目由于不斷地增長而無法知曉。每個歐度中大約有800艾西，在每一個歐度中都有一個特殊的信號，它是舉行儀式的巴巴拉臥通過使用棕櫚果和預言鏈子決定的。作為艾法預言中最重要的部分——艾西，是由巫師用詩歌的語言唱誦的。艾西反映了約魯巴的歷史、語言、信仰和當代社會的問題。艾法的知識被這些巫師和約魯巴的社會保留了下來。