agere Ifa (divination cup), unrecorded Oyo artist

Archive label for Palmer collection exhibit, date unknown:
Ifa was the Yoruba orisha concerned with certainty and orderliness, the diametric opposite of Eshu. Accurate prediction of the future being important to an ordered existence, Ifa also was the god of oracles. In this connection, priests of Ifa would conduct divinations, during which several objects were vital. This bowl was employed to hold palm-nuts, which were scattered on a special board covered with flour. The message from the gods was interpreted according to how the nuts fell and the patterns produced by their rolling across the floured board. These divination bowls uusually provided a vehicle for colorfully executed genre scenes, despite the gravity of the situation in which they were used.