Ifa priest: Pray for your departed

It was a year ago in Brooklyn that I met Ifa priest Mahaba Olufemi and his wife, Jacqueline. They were guests at an event organised by Gayelle Television Production. They were both smartly dressed in African raiment. They made a striking couple. I was moved to introduce myself. Mahaba is bespectacled, of medium built and dark brown complexion. He is articulate and candid. Last week, in unseasonably cold weather, we met again, this time at his home. His attire was less than spectacular, but his voice was characteristically powerful and deep. It was vintage Mahaba, without a doubt. He was vivacious, even garrulous, at times adopting the vernacular of his Trinidad homeland, igniting the room, in spurts, with his brand of levity.

He took me over to an altar which was secluded by a white drape. He pulled it aside and began identifying several pictures that bedecked the wall which served as the backdrop to the altar. “This is my father, my mother, my uncle, my great aunt...They are elders, respected in the community who made valuable contribution to the household and the community,” he said. “There are so many cases that come to mind, where bad karma overwhelmed people because they have totally forgotten their loved ones who have passed,” he explained. “It is important that we perform acts of remembrance to our departed. This way, we are helping them and ourselves. Unresolved conflicts can leave lasting spiritual and material problems,” he stated. “Let’s be practical” he began. “If your father and you had real conflicts before he died and he passed in an agitated state…thinking you were not a good son, what level of consciousness would he leave this world with?” he then asked rhetorically. “That conflict becomes a hindrance to everything you do in this life. Your father’s soul is also restless.”

Mahaba identified praying daily for the repose of the departed, stressing that you must open a line of communication if enduring conflicts are to be resolved. “You can write letters and leave it on the altar, or visit the grave and leave a note there. You just have to talk to them,” he said. According to this popular Ifa priest, one must work on the physical and spiritual level to amend torn familial relationships, even appealing to elders in the bloodline who have passed, for assistance. And how would you know that there has been a resolution to a problem? “The deceased will tell you directly or even through a dream,” he answered, intoning with Freudian conviction, the relevance of dreams. “Dreams are not just dreams,” he stressed. He mentioned other methods, including divination, to determine if an adverse situation had been resolved. To prevent such perilous situations, Mahaba counseled on the importance of obedience to one’s parents and elders. “Your mother is the closest thing to your creator because she is the vehicle that made your existence possible,” he said. “If you are not beholden to her, your lot in life will be terrible. You have to be thankful for your parents in this life and continue showing this degree of gratitude when they are gone. It is your responsibility and obligation, and any breakage in that relationship will be devastating in this life and the hereafter.

It was about time for me to bid farewell, but not before Mahaba invited me to join him in his personal prayer to his departed: “To all my ancestors in my father’s father lineage and in my father’s mother lineage. And in my mother’s father lineage and my mother’s mother lineage and in my mother’s father lineage. “To those whose faces I have never seen and whose voices I have never heard. Whose warm smile I was never able to see. But whose blood flows in my veins and substance fill my bones. And upon whose strong shoulders I now stand and walk upright in the light, I give praise and thanks. And pay my respect and gratitude to you all in the invisible realm. Adupe! (I Thank you).”
 
• Dr Glenville Ashby is a foreign correspondent for Guardian Media Ltd. glenvilleashby@gmail.com.

•In Dr Ashby’s article, Trini and Bangladeshi to serve people on the margins, published on April 13, the photograph was courtesy of Adjua Mantebea.