The Yoruba’s 256 Odu number system

The 256 Odu number system is one your teacher did not know. As a microprocessor designer and engineer, when I look at the organization of transistors for processors, I remember that even WAEC could not mention Yoruba’s 256 Ifa Odu number system in our books. Had it been written and documented, colonization would not have happened. Yorubas pioneered the number system centuries ago.

Obatala, the son of Olodumare, had the postulation that Yorubas’ kindred (the Igbos) invented how to discover and nurture wealth. Pita Nwanna’s Omenuko – one of the most influential books in explaining the linkage of commerce and ancestral Igbo divinity – made that evident: you make wealth even in scarcity. Before the reign of Oduduwa in the 7th century AD, the Ooni nurtured that linkage.

People, you may ask: why is Nigeria still struggling?

More Perspectives from Feed

Comment 1: You’re more dangerous than we all think, Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe.
Here’s a trip to an Ifa priest. You greet from outside, the language you use determines if the priest would ask you in by yourself or send his/her minion to check you up and bring you in. You don’t enter with your face forward,it’s a reverse entry. The priest orders you to take a position kneeling, seating or whatever works. The priest doesn’t require you to speak to him/her what brings you, you take a valuable gift (many times just currency note) and whisper your subject of inquiry and do with it as the priest says. The priest makes a chant to invoke the spirits. He/she has a bead like tool. The bead has two connected rows of two-sided three flat beads each. When he/she is done chanting and slams the bead, there are 256 possible combinations (probability). There is a divine story for each of those 256 possibilities. Often, you hear the priest recant the story that matches what the bid reveals. Sometimes they throw the bid multiple times to validate that Ifa has only one approach to whatever the visitor has come to inquire about in which case you had better have the priest speaking positives?. It’s doom if on three occasions, you got the same negative revelation.

A trip to an Ifa priest cont’d.

When the Ifa priest has concluded his inquiry, he/she narrates the divine story (Odu) that matches the combination of the bead that he got, whatever he/she would advise the visitor stems from the story. The priest has no redemption to offer outside of those 256 stories (Odus). Given the modern era we are in and many of the commodities in the stories are almost non-existent, the priest sometimes improvise, but they usually would put out a disclaimer that there are no guarantees that an improv will be as effective. What is interesting is how the revealed story typically matches what the visitor has come to inquire about. Caveat! Ifa priests aren’t voodoo doctors.

I’m certain my brother [] would be rolling his eyes for me in contempt, wondering why Im scrambling to discuss a something I had on a platter of gold but refused. I was a teenager when I had the opportunity but without any reasonable explanation at the time, I was more comfortable in the church. Born, raised and dedicated to Christ as a child, I guess some things can’t be taken back?. And really, having seen the two side of the coin, I’m happy with the path I chose and will choose it again. Acts 4:12!

My Response: The Odu number system can be looked at from two angles: spiritual and scientific. The Yorubas because of lack of writing invention kept the spiritual but lost the scientific. If you look at the earliest works of Pythagoras, you would accuse him of serving Athena, the Greek goddess of knowledge. But because he wrote and explained, we accepted most as the basis of natural philosophy. Without writing, it would be folklores as with Yoruba’s Odu coding.

al-Khw?rizmi – the father of algebra was a highly religious man. He ran the house of wisdom and was a devout religious man in Baghdad. But as he started writing, he explained the foundation of algebra even though he was known as the puzzle solver in Mecca and Medina.

My point is this: had the Yorubas invented writing, the Odu coding could have entered the large sphere of natural philosophy and demystified the spirituality. Think about it: if Euclid had not written his works on geometry, it would have been all spiritual to many. In FUTO, students call ODE [ordinary differential equation] “o di egwu” which in Igbo means something mystical and challenging.

Tell the high priest to write what he does as an equation, some spirituality will evolve to science!

Comment 2: I think the binary numbers discussed by Prof. John Anenechukwu Ume in his book; After God is Dibia dealt very well with such too where he noted 260 Igbo Afa numbers, especially for those conversant with Afa Ugiri. There is no genuine African divination, Igbo or Yoruba without numbers, which came first remains to be known. But Anene was deep in his work

Comment 3: I’m glad that a great mind has affirmed my opinion.

I read a Facebook post blaming religion for our apparent backwardness whereas India that was also colonised by the British is making stride.

I simply commented that lack of permanent recording systems in the form of writing and dating are the number one reason black Africa was colonised physically and mentally.

India has a record dating thousands of years which it held tenacious during the Moghul and British colonialisms; and it revived element if it after the colonialists left. Not so with Sub Saharan Africa. In just about fifty years, we had lost so much that those who started fighting for independence didn’t have much of our traditional wisdom to utilise, while the independent and post independent generation of leaders started building their new countries on the knowledge of their colonial masters. Now, we just have to be committed to that path.

@lotannafreeman

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