A history of the Mérìndínlógún (Diloggún)

Mérìndínlógún in Yorubaland

Similar to the Afro-Cuban Practice, indicating a common root, the 16 cowrie shell divination is deployed by both men and women in Yorubaland and, unlike Ifa divination, which can be found amongst neighboring cultures as well, seems to be almost exclusively a Yoruba, and specifically Nago, practice (Bascom, 4). 

While Ifa Divination is regarded as the domain of the Orisha Orunmila, Cowrie Shell Divination is associated with various Orishas; Shango, Oya, Oshun, Eshu, Oba, Yemoja, and more (ibid, 4). Bascom theorizes this is perhaps why the practice established itself more prominently in the New World, given the nation-wide devotion of those Orishas amongst women as opposed to the closed off male-centric practice of Ifa (3). 

Nigerian Diviners cast the shells and expect one of 17 numerical outcomes to appear (0-16) which they count by denoting each mouth up as 1 (5). An experienced diviner can recite a series of verses associated with each sign and the client will internalize the verse that they feel is most applicable to their situation (ibid). Further inquiries can be made through using the signs as a yes/no binary. There are “less powerful” and “more powerful signs.” (7) As the participant is holding two objects in the palm of each of their hands, each which represents yes or no; the sign that lands determines which hand to open, helping answer more specific inquiries such as matters of Iku (death) or àrùn (disease) (8). 

Cowrie shell divination today is not widely sought after in Nigeria, according to Bascom’s work in Sixteen Cowries, which was an attempt to archive and salvage a historical knowledge at risk of being lost. He writes of his interlocutor, Maranoro Salako, as an older man who is seen by those around him as holding on to an antiquated tradition (Bascom, 12). Bascom writes about how the decline of Salako’s prestige was partially due to the conversion of the Alaafin of Oyo to Islam and subsequent passing (11). We should note that Babalawos, on the other hand, still are widely sought after amongst Yoruba today, and not ignore the femininity of Salako (who was born male) nor the fact that Babalawos are always men, which poses some questions unexplored by Bascom about gender and sexual expressions prior to the introduction of Religions and Cultures with a patriarchal orientation such as the Colonial Powers or Islam, and how this shaped the Yoruba practices themselves, and why gender parity was not as diminished amongst practitioners of Santería in the Americas, which was also governed by similarly patriarchal regimes. For the most part, Bascom does not really explore these questions; his interest lies in the historical preservation of the verses associated with each combination of the cowrie shells, creating an archive familiar to a Western Audience in the process. The death of the Indigenous Yoruba process of archiving comes across as less urgent in his work, as well as who the archivist (Salako) was in a more profound sense. 

The Divinatory verses recorded by Bascom record historical stories retelling occurrences of spiritual and material misfortune or fortune amongst people who presumably lived. No Orisha is attributed as an author or archivist but rather as an associate of the divination tool; in works recording the Cuban context this is expressed more clearly as an associate Orisha who “speaks” with each sign. The way Bascom recorded the verses indicates that the Orishas participate more as characters within the story, and thus have a certain association correspondent to each verse (and other verses where they don’t appear at all). 

Time is a key to understanding the Divination practice. Divination on the part of the person who navigates it has a historical element in that it each symbol contains wisdom that must be preserved. In the case of Salako, he turned to Bascom in order to use writing as a method of saving what he thought would otherwise be lost with him since oral memory was used (12). Bascom’s servants also viewed the knowledge as historical, yet appreciated its contents. Divination, however, implies temporality which looks towards the future. For recipients of consultations, this is the context in which it is useful to them. Look at this excerpt of verse 6 in Eji Ogbe (8 mouths up) (65):

Diloggún in Cuba

As Sophie Oluwole (2017) writes, Orunmila, like Socrates, did not actually author wisdom attributed to him (53). Similarly, the Yorubaland Merindinlogun remembers historical occurrences but does not see the verses as authored by any particular individual. This is not dissimilar to archives. We often know very little about the person who compiled and organized archival work, we engage with the documents themselves. A diviner, in this context, is not dissimilar to a librarian; they possess some responsibility of maintaining the historical records in place and also practice an ethic of interpretation and guidance to the person accessing the knowledge database, but they themselves are not authors, rather stewards.

The diviner Salako, in Bascom’s work (1980), never attributes his wisdom to any particular authoring Orisha. We know that: he was chosen by Orishala for the work he does, he was born in Ile Gbonka (9) but settled in the Oyo Area (Shango’s domain, where many Yoruba Slaves to the New World were from) and had his services retained by the king (11), he views his wisdom as ancient, and others view him in contrast to modernity (12). In fact, as we see from the verse above, the Orishas are understood in a very broad way, sometimes referred to as singular, indicating an energy that transcends the specific entities we categorize as Orishas. Bascom frames Salako as the author of a certain lineage of wisdom, which initiates from the particularities of his relationship with Orishala, but not as an author or creator of these verses.

In Cuba, the religion’s character as a reconstructed creolized practice changes this understanding a little bit. 

There are a number of historical continuities that indicate a direct connection between Yoruba Religion, Culture, and Language, and what falls under the banner of “La Regla de Ocha-Lucumí” in Cuba today. Flash of the Spirit (1983), by Robert Thompson, is a great resource to pinpoint Caribbean material culture’s direct connection to its African root expression. However, the religion is largely understood as reconstructed even amongst practitioners. As George Brandon (2012) writes, Yoruba Religion as Practiced in Cuba was influenced by a number of factors which led to its current manifestation. The first was the introduction of the Cabildo system by the Spanish Crown as a mechanism to introduce Catholicism in an expedited fashion to the deterritorialized slaves by having communal spaces divided loosely by Ethnicity (Brandon, 2012, 168). One of these was the Lucumí Cabildos, which became a catch-all for different Yoruba Groups (ibid). This allowed some preservation of cultural practice to take place. New practices, however, were introduced through the trade network between Free Black Subjects and Nigeria (ibid). This is an undervalued contribution in the construction of the religious practices; as has been written about elsewhere in this archive in the Brazilian context (see: Ruth Landes, City of Women, 1947), migratory flows within Black Communities was important in shaping and reshaping Religious Practices. Brandon writes that these migrants who went to Africa and returned in the late 19th and early 20th century shaped the religious practices deployed today (169). This is significantly explored in Henry B Lovejoy’s Prieto (2018), with regards to the refugees from Oyo who arrived to Cuba free, and quickly got involved in Orisha Communities; chapter 6 provides particularly valuable insight into this.

Ocha’ni Lele names examples of these figures who are considered the founding figures of modern Santería; Mama Monserrate, Octavio Sama, Timotea Albear, and Ferminita Gomez (Lele, 2003, 9). Octavio Sama was a student of Monserrate, who wrote much of her teachings, yet at this point, they had not been able to form a complete liturgy of the Lucumí Diloggun; this was done with the help of Timotea Albear, a child of Shango who had come from Yorubaland and had already learned the Cowrie Shell Divination system (ibid, 11). In addition to this, her response to the deterritorialization of the Yoruba in Cuba was to create the initiatory system known today which crowns Orishas on People’s heads in a parental relationship, as opposed to one rooted in geographic pertinence (ibid). The Orishas seemed largely satisfied with this system, as they possessed these newly crowned children in the process, affirming this flavour of Yoruba Religious practice as one done in collaboration with the Orishas. Creolization is a subject introduced within the Patakines of the Diloggun; both Ocha’ni Lele and Solimar Otero, in Archives of Conjure, recount similar stories of Oshun (who is syncretized with the Patron Saint of Cuba, La Virgen de la Caridad) was creolized with the help of Yemaya. For the many Mulattas (mixed race) women in Cuba today, this might serve as a source of comfort and relationality in a religion with ancient roots elsewhere. 

In English, the writer who provided perhaps the most expansive and detailed overview of the Diloggun was Ocha Ni Lele, who was a Santería Priest adept in divination. His work was mostly published with himself as the primary source; he does not reference materials, and mentions what he writes is information passed down from elders he has learned from. Nonetheless, other academics, including George Brandon, reference him as a source of information on Divination (2012, 186). 

In his book titled “The Diloggún,” (2003) there are some noticeable differences present that indicate a divergence in style, perhaps as a response to the changing conditions of Cuba. As in Bascom’s table of the 17 Odus (signs), there are Orishas who are associated with each sign. This occurs too in Lele’s Cuban recital of the Odus, but the deities are often completely different, and in some cases, there are multiple deities.

The verses of the Nigerian system are much longer, and, according to Bascom, the client is the one who discerns the meaning of the verses. The Cuban system is much more interpretive on the part of the Diviner. Verses are shortened to what are called “Refranes” (sayings or Proverbs), prescriptions, Patakines (short stories). 

The Orisha speaks through the Diloggun, the Diviner simply facilitates. While the intention is to provide limited human intervention into the word of the Orishas, an experienced diviner may intervene to explain certain ideas (Brandon). At times, this can be controversial; an example of this is found in Randy Connor and David Sparks’ Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions (2004), where they discuss how the sign Odi Meyi (7-7) is always used to assume sexually transmitted diseases when the client is queer, in spite of the other liturgy associated with the sign (131-133). Ultimately, a certain intuitiveness is required to communicate the intention of the Orisha; the Diloggun is not intended as a conversation between diviner and client but the diviner’s intervention may result it so. 

Signs

Combinations 13-16 are not widely disseminated in Cuba amongst Santeros, the usual advice upon receiving them would be to visit a babalawo, if those shells are even incorporated into one’s throw at all, since the Orishas cannot speak through these numbers. Thus I have not included them. However, both Lele and Bascom’s book includes information about them, for further reading, although Lele’s is much more general and less detailed than his information about the previous 12 signs. 

Bibliography

Bascom, William Russell. 1980. Sixteen Cowries : Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New 

World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Brandon, George. 2012. “Lucumi Divination, the Mythic World and the Management of 

Misfortune.” Anthropologica (Ottawa) 54 (2): 167–88.

Conner, Randy P, and David Hatfield Sparks. 2013. Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions : Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Participation in African-Inspired Traditions in the Americas. New York: Routledge. 

Gardenburg, Monique, dir. 2007. Ó Pai Ó. 1990; Brazil: Globo Filmes, 2002. Clip from YouTube, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVCbb-cSgQY&list=LL&index=5.

Herrera Manresa, Consuelo (knowledge keeper and contributor) in discussion with the author, 

June 2024

Landes, Ruth. 1947. The City of Women. 1st University of New Mexico Press ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico 

Press (1994 reprint).

Lele, Ocha'ni. 2003. The Diloggun: The Orishas, Proverbs, Sacrifices, and Prohibitions of 

Cuban Santeria. Rochester: Destiny Books.

Lovejoy, Henry B. 2018. Prieto : Yorùbá Kingship in Colonial Cuba during the Age of 

Revolutions. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Oluwole, Sophie B. 2017. Socrates and Orunmila: Two Patron Saints of Classical Philosophy. 

Lagos: Ark Publishers.

Otero, Solimar. 2020. Archives of Conjure : Stories of the Dead in Afrolatinx Cultures. New York: 

Columbia University Press.

She's Gotta Have it, Episode 2, “#BootyFull (SELF ACCEPTANCE),” directed by Spike Lee, aired November 23rd, 2017, on Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/title/80117554.