American Priest, African Faith

FARAI CHIDEYA, host:

And now, from teaching religion to the practice of faith. Religions like voodoo and Santeria got a bad rap in America, especially for their rituals and ceremonies that may look strange to the uninitiated. But those faiths have rich histories that stretch back all the way to Africa. They spring in part from an ancient belief system called Ifa, based in Nigeria. When enslaved Africans came West, many mixed Ifa with Christianity in order to mask and preserve their traditional faith.

Now some black Americans are reconnecting with African religions like Ifa. Earl White is a Kansas native who became an Ifa priest about eight years ago. His name in the Ifa faith is Babalawo Fa'Lokun Fashegun(ph). And he's with me now in our NPR West studio. Welcome.

Mr. EARL WHITE (Priest, Ifa Faith): Thank you.

Mr. WHITE: Alasya(ph)means peace and health.

CHIDEYA: Oh.

Mr. WHITE: So I greet you with alasya.

CHIDEYA: Thank you very much.

So let me ask you about your name, your priestly name.

Mr. WHITE: Fa'Lokun - the first name is Fa'Lokun; the second name is Fa'Shegun. When you see Fa, in the Ifa religion that relates to Ifa. Olokun(ph) is the ocean. So when you see Fa'Lokun, it means that - it says that Ifa is as deep as the ocean, the wisdom of Ifa is as deep as the ocean. It's also saying in some respects that this is a person who took Ifa from Africa across the ocean. Fa'Shegun - Shegun means victory. So when we say Fa'Shegun it's saying that Ifa will give me victory in my life over those things that I need to overcome, whether they're mental, physical or spiritual.

CHIDEYA: You seemed very centered in you faith, but there was a time when you were a practicing Christian. How did you make the transition and why?

Mr. WHITE: As a child, my family - my mother's father was a Pentecostal minister. And as a young child, I had many questions about religion and spirituality, and there was always this question of Africa. And growing up in the - well, in the African-American community, we always heard negative things about Africa. So from the time - I can remember - 6, 7 years old - there was this quest that I was on to find out more about my African culture. And Ifa - I began to study from - I'd say the time I was 10 years old.

CHIDEYA: When you walk into a room full of strangers, whether it's a work context, a cocktail party and someone asks you about religion or it comes up, what do you tell them about Ifa? What do you tell them about what you believe, how you practice?

Mr. WHITE: Well, the first thing I do to break the ice is I always make it very clear that we have a belief in one God, and the God we call Olodumare. Underneath Olodumare, we have the Orishas, which are forces in nature. So they would relate to angels. And we also have a belief in ancestors, a very strong part in all African traditions. Ancestor reverence is very strong, and we also practice that as well.

CHIDEYA: So when you practice or worship, how do you do it? And perhaps - you brought some objects into the studio. Perhaps you can visually explain what they are and how they're used.

Mr. WHITE: Okay. One of them - the main things in Ifa is that we have - when someone is born - we believe that everyone has their own destiny, which we call Ori. And when a child is born, there's a ceremony called the Esentaye(ph). It means you step into the universe. And divination is a big part - plays a big part in Ifa. We call it Dafa. It means to throw, cast Ifa.

There's a tray that I have here. It's a circular tray and I have a small one that we use for traveling. The tray is a - it's a divination tray. And when the child is born, it's three to seven days after his birth, what we're trying to figure out is what the child brings to the earth, good or bad. And we use the divination to figure that out. So that's a big, big part of that. And this tray is called the opon Ifa.

Now, what happens is in divination, we make markings on the tray that gives us a particular scripture what we call the Odu. A lot of people don't know that Ifa has scripture. We call it the Odu Ifa. And what happens is when we're doing the divination, we come up with eight markings, which give us the scripture and it's basically giving the - I use the - an astrology sign for the child. It's a blueprint of his life, of their history in the world.

There's many forms of divination. These are the major forms and these are only done by what's called a babalawo. Baba is father, awo means secret, Father of the Secrets. If it's a female, it's Iyanifa. Iya means mother of Ifa.

CHIDEYA: Let me stop you for one second. You are a babalawo.

Mr. WHITE: Yes.

CHIDEYA: What did you have to do to reach that point in your practice?

Mr. WHITE: Well, the Orishas choose you. You don't choose them. We always - that's something that's known and it's a tradition and I have a lot of stories about that. But on the journey, the certain levels of initiation that you go through, and if it's chosen for your in divination, your elder or a Babalawo or your Iyanifa will do the divination for you. And we have to see if the priesthood is on your past. It's not on everyone's past. It happened to be on my past. And I had to go to Africa and I was initiated there. And it was a - for a babalawo, it's a seven-day ritual that's done. And some of the things I can't speak about, this part of awo, the mystery and the secret.

CHIDEYA: Do you ever feel that there's a pressure on you to remain in the background or do other practitioners feel that they may not be able to converse with people of other faiths and have them understand?

Mr. WHITE: Yes. I - in my own personal experience, I don't hide anything. I'm very proud of this tradition. It's basically saved my life.

CHIDEYA: What do you mean by that?

Mr. WHITE: Well, there was a time when I was going with a lot anger issues. And we have an Orisha, an Ifa called Ogun(ph). Ogun represents the warrior side of nature, the spirit of iron. And as a child, I had all this anger and I got into a lot fight. I found myself being in situations where I could have possibly -well, I had been shot at. I've had guns put on me. And as I got involved in the tradition, I was receiving readings trying to figure out what was going on in my life. And the priests that were reading me were telling me that I'm a child of Ogun, which explained a lot of the aggression that I had, the anger that I had. But it wasn't channeled properly.

It's not saying that Ogun is an aggressive Orisha, but that energy is hot and it represents war. And if it's out of balance, it can become negative. When it's in balance, it's very positive. So this helped me deal with a lot of my anger issues and issues around pain, of growing up and, you know, not having a father in my life. And also I've been involved in the martial arts for over 30 years. So that was another way that Ogun was appeared to me through the martial arts and helped heal some of those wounds and some of the anger that I had in growing up as a child.

CHIDEYA: Well, thank you so much for joining us.

Mr. WHITE: Thank you.

CHIDEYA: Earl White is a babalawo, or priest, of the Ifa religion. He's also a kung fu master who teaches in Los Angeles. You can see a video of Earl showing me some of the religious objects from his faith and discussing Ifa. Just go to our Web site, nprnews¬es.org.

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