With words of praise, prayer and thanks­giv­ing echo­ing through the streets of Wood­brook, devo­tees and sup­port­ers gath­ered on Jan­u­ary 24 for the an­nu­al Obata­la Fes­ti­val—a sa­cred cel­e­bra­tion ho­n­our­ing one of the most revered Orisa in the Ifa Orisa tra­di­tion.

Mem­bers of the Ile Oosa Ig­bo Ita­pa shrine were joined by prac­ti­tion­ers from the wider Ifa Orisa com­mu­ni­ty and well-wish­ers as the fes­ti­val un­fold­ed un­der the pa­tron­age of Oba Àlà Obata­la of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ofag­ben­jo Oriy­o­mi Oris­abe­mi Da­da. The ob­ser­vance pays homage to Orisa Obata­la, the di­vine force as­so­ci­at­ed with light, pu­ri­ty and eth­i­cal liv­ing, who is be­lieved to erad­i­cate neg­a­tive thoughts and re­place them with clar­i­ty, high moral stan­dards and a com­mit­ment to mak­ing the world more beau­ti­ful.

The day’s ac­tiv­i­ties be­gan from 9 am at Siegert Square where rit­u­als, drum­ming, dance and chant­i­ng set a rev­er­ent yet cel­e­bra­to­ry tone. The space came alive with the rhythms of tra­di­tion­al drums, the flu­id move­ments of dancers clad pre­dom­i­nant­ly in white, and the voic­es of devo­tees in­vok­ing peace, bal­ance and jus­tice.

Ar­ti­san dis­plays added an­oth­er lay­er to the ex­pe­ri­ence, with fine art, hand­craft­ed items and tra­di­tion­al foods of­fer­ing pa­trons a chance to en­gage with the cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions root­ed in the Orisa tra­di­tion. For many at­ten­dees, the fes­ti­val was not on­ly a spir­i­tu­al gath­er­ing but al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­con­nect with an­ces­tral her­itage and com­mu­ni­ty.

With­in the Ifa Orisa cos­mol­o­gy, Obata­la oc­cu­pies a cen­tral role in the cre­ation of the world. He is recog­nised as the Orisa who es­tab­lished land on plan­et Earth, lead­ing the sec­ond wave of Orisa to ter­raform the plan­et and es­tab­lish ter­res­tri­al life. Be­fore Obata­la’s ar­rival, Earth was be­lieved to be a wa­ter-cov­ered plan­et ruled by Olokun, the Orisa of the ocean and deep wa­ters. Obata­la is said to have ar­rived with a “ship” of Orisa, cre­at­ing land where life could flour­ish. In lat­er ac­counts, hu­mans were formed un­der his guid­ance.

Be­yond cre­ation, Obata­la is wide­ly re­gard­ed as the em­bod­i­ment of peace, jus­tice, tem­per­ance, com­pas­sion and eth­i­cal ac­tion. These val­ues were re­flect­ed through­out the fes­ti­val, not on­ly in rit­u­al ob­ser­vance but in the at­mos­phere of calm, mu­tu­al re­spect and spir­i­tu­al fo­cus that de­fined the day.

Rit­u­al pu­ri­ty re­mains cen­tral to Obata­la wor­ship. In tra­di­tion­al Yoru­ba prac­tices and with­in San­tería, the de­ity is close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with white cloth, clear thought and spir­i­tu­al clean­li­ness. One of the most sig­nif­i­cant cer­e­mo­ni­al el­e­ments in­volves wa­ter, which must be sourced from a clean spring ear­ly in the morn­ing. This task is tra­di­tion­al­ly car­ried out by a vir­gin or a woman of high moral stand­ing, re­in­forc­ing the themes of pu­ri­ty, clar­i­ty and the care­ful main­te­nance of Obata­la’s sa­cred space.

As the fes­ti­val pro­gressed, chants and prayers rose in uni­son, call­ing for har­mo­ny with­in fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties and the wider so­ci­ety. For devo­tees, the Obata­la Fes­ti­val is both a spir­i­tu­al du­ty and a re­minder of the val­ues that guide dai­ly life—peace over con­flict, clar­i­ty over con­fu­sion, and com­pas­sion over di­vi­sion.

In Wood­brook, those ideals res­onat­ed far be­yond Siegert Square, car­ried on the drum­beats, the prayers and the col­lec­tive hope for a more just and bal­anced world.