Afa Mathematics

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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 t o 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
1441
15481433, 1965, 6, Downloaded from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1965.67.6.02a00050 by Nigeria Hinari NPL, Wiley Online Library on [18/03/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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] A f a 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 (idigbd) 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 it 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 t o 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, it 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 it 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 it
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
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 a n 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.
I n 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 it 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 t o 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 t o the Blusi offspring of this major ilusi, and when she explained
1446 A merican Anthropologist [67, 1965
her situation t o 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 &lusinamed 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 icalling 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. I n 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 t o 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 O y (“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 it 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
students came t o 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 it 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 t o the caster, who commences to cast the strings of afa.
I n 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 t o clarify
my explanation of the method of afa-divination.2 I n 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 [67, 1965
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.”
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 N o . 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 ikashi, 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
1+2=pbara ohu. In Igbo this is &manyu, or palm wine.
2+3=ohzi’pbera. I n Igbo this is mlyyi, or blood.
2+4=ohu ogutl. I n 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 t h e nature of the blood sacrifice.
Cast N o . 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. I n 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
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 N o . 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 4
a. 0 C C C
b. C 0 C C
C. C C 0 C
d. C C C 0
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 2li2
(Observe though your eye buries
onwogi, ma obugi abuzi.”
yourselves, spirit still lives cricket)
and
SHELTON] A j a 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.
3 b + 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 t o 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 it 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 t o 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 I h o
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 a n 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.
TURNER, V. W.
1964 Witchcraft and sorcery: taxonomy versus dynamics. Africa XXXIV:314-325.

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15481433, 1965, 6, Downloaded from https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1965.67.6.02a00050 by Nigeria Hinari NPL, Wiley Online Library on [18/03/2023].

The origin of afa divination is unknown by the present writer and by my

2. Deciding the Correct Course of Events-This second broad category of

On this same subject, Attama Okpo of Imilikani explained:

Another major source of worry is that of witchcraft. If a man feels that

THE METHOD OF AFA-DIVINATION: ONE CASE

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

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