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Having just returned from New Year's in Cuba, I have several topics todiscuss and open for discussion, however we will start with a tough one firstand address the others over the next few weeks. I am a big supporter of 

female priests of Orunmila (Orula) in Cuban Lucumi. Yet there is a fraudbeing promoted that we should be aware of. Let's start with one fact, womenpriests of Orula are not common in Cuban Lucumi, in fact only a handful of ile IFA even recognize them. For me personally to see a significant problemat this early stage is not only disappointing, but frustrating. Let me give youa bit of a recap of recent history, around ten years ago the first four womenpriests of Orula were made through an itefa in the Havana barrio of JesusMaria. Officiating (leading) the ceremony was my godfather Lazzaro Pijuan.

We will start with Lazzaro, because paramount to ANY itefa is thelineage of where the ashe (ase) comes from. It MUST come from Olofin, andtherefore the leader MUST have received Olofin through ceremony andpossess his own Olofin pot, or have received Olofin and borrowed a potWITH PERMISSION. No one can lead an itefa unless they have Olofin.Lazzaro interestingly has two Olofin's one is a traditional lineage from anOyo line and the other is a Cuban Lucumi Olofin. Lazzaro's concept was touse the Oyo Olofin to birth the female priests. There are several reasons forthis, yet obviously one is that in certain ile and lineages (not all) inYorubaland women are accepted as priests. We also need to understand thatat this time, there were no female priests of Orula and thus this wasgroundbreaking stuff, and there was a substantial amount of resistance to

women priests of Orunmila (and there still is). To further understand Lucumior the rank part of our system of leaders we must recognize Lazzaro'sLucumi rank and credentials, they are some of the strongest in Cuba. Lucumiis divided into two parts: A) ocha ( Orisha worship) where we find santeros,santeras and the Cuban oba. These have their own houses, some areconnected to ile IFA, and many are not. While noted author David Browninsists these houses (and ocha lineages) are older then the ile IFA in Cuba, Ipersonally am not in agreement with this.( I say this in passing, not to getsidetracked in a debate), and David has led the research and is significantand many contributions to Cuban Lucumi are well noted and recognized in

his opusSanteria Enthroned 

. B ) ile IFA and rama ( IFA). There are alsoocha rama, I should note. Basically, and ile our house in ocha is a family orgroup some might call a church or place where like minded individualworship, in both ocha and IFA these units have at least one leader withsignificant credentials and tenure. The umbrella to these in both ocha andIFA is a rama or branch, thus one or more of the units in both ocha and IFAmake up the components or lineage of a rama, each rama has a leader whoalmost always is one of the leaders of the units, so in IFA as we turn our

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attention to it exclusively, one chosen leader of an ile IFA, is usually theleader of a given rama. In Lazzaro's case in Lucumi, he is the leader of notonly our ile, but the Che Che rama. In Cuban Lucumi the leaders of thevarious ramas are somewhat like the Araba in Yorubaland, in other wordsthey have pretty much unlimited power in their region (state or geographic

area). Each rama holds a seat on the ruling comission, sort of like anexecutive committee.

The Commission puts out or publishes La letra del ano, yet whileindividual members usually are members of the government's nine year oldSociety of Yoruba, The Commission is NOT subservient to the government'sSociety of Yoruba, quite the opposite in fact, as The Commission's powerand Letra del Ano are decades older and more respected than the Society.This year amazingly both The Commission ( Miguel Febles Padron) and therelatively new Society of Yoruba both cast Baba Eyiogbe, so for once in thelast nine years there is no major conflict in the two letras.

Back to our four lady priests of Orunmila who were reborn as IFApriests (tesses) and naturally accepted into our ile. However being acceptedinto an ile carries with it responsibilities, and paramount is to obey the lawsand taboos of that ile., and here lies the problem, frustration, anddisappointment. To explain this in layman's terms, you must understand thatnot all ile are created equal or are equal. Like a university, some are morerespected and you might say conservative, than others. Just like universitysome we could compare with say a community college, and there are plentyof these in Lucumi, there are also ones like a diploma by mail or what we

would call a mail order priesthood, fortunately there are less of these, whotend to sell a ceremony without the requisite education or permissions thatshould accompany any ceremony. There are also a fair nimber of gooduniversity type of ile, and then there are a few great ones, just. likeHarvard, Yale, Oxford or Cambridge. What makes the difference are threethings 1) the quality and strength of the ashe (ase), the stronger and morehistorically relevant the lineage of ashe, the better. 2) The education, this isnot only length of education but the quality of the teachers and the personalattention they give to the omo awo (student priest). 3) Permissions,because in order to have clients or preform ceremony or advance in rank in

addition to education, you need to have the permissions of your godparent,elders, and leader, therefore the harder the permissions are to obtain, thebetter or more qualified a IFA priest will be, if permissions are given lightly itspeaks to the quality of the ile. Finally, this is true not only in IFA, but inocha. The elders all know which are the better ashe, education and tougherpermissions to obtain, however it is not common knowledge.

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The reason the four ladies are no longer in our ile is they have startedtheir own, and this in itself is a problem in Lucumi IFA. The reason is that inorder to start an ile IFA in Lucumi you MUST have received Olofin. a womenand this is the one thing can't receive in Lucumi. Net result is these arebirthing other women through itefa, yet there is no Olofin, so there is no

ashe ! Basically, they are doing what many in our religion are doing isbreaking the strict rules, for the sake of $$$. If there is no ashe, what isborn and reborn and reborn is a mountain of shit, because not only are theyselling make believe titles, but those who they birth are selling make believetitles, and so on down the line.....without the ashe, it is a con, it alwayscomes back to ashe, training and permissions. so I am very disappointed asis Lazzaro. Let me show you how rank and tenure work in an ile and I willalso insert women.....

Top Level : Completed the ceremony we call "The Mysteries of Olofin"Unfortunately no Lucumi women can or do have this, there are no Olofinpots owned by women, and unless our religion changes mightily there neverwill be. However as I have pointed out there are many, many con jobs wedeal with, yet usually it is with Lucumi men ! These have make believe potsor were conned into buying a ceremony, rank and title that has no value.Out of over 100,000,000 (100 million) Lucumi less than 1000 hold this rank(for real). This rank does two things for you, it allows you to have a personalrelationship with Olofin where you can share his ashe of birth others on ANYceremonial rank, secondly you can or it is permission for you to start yourown ile IFA, I should also note that those who have a personal odu in oturasa also have a personal relationship with Olofin, so for a normal person

outside the religion or in it should this be your personal odu you have thisrelationship automatically. IFA priest who have more than one odu also havethis relationship IF one of your three odu are otura sa, or if you have it inwalando (cuchillo).

Second Level: Wanaldo ceremony, this too has a tremendous amount of con jobs and is the most compromised, misunderstood rank in Lucimi IFA. Thereason is it is not just acquiring the permission to sacrifice four leggedanimals, IT IS A CONFIRMATION that an Awo has completed his (or an Iya)has satisfactorily completed their "formal" education. No Baba Awo, no Awo,

nor Iya ever completes their education, because we are learning until ourlast breath. The only two who know all on Earth are Olofin andOrunmila.....PERIOD. For a woman, this rank is called an Iyanifa, for a manboth this level and the top level are called Baba Awo.

Third Level: This is a crowned Awo or Iya (in ocha) who has completed theirformal training, but does not have the wanaldo ceremony. Now a word to"formal training", this once upon a time was stated at five years minimum

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for an awo. The problem with this is there were not tourist awo in thosebygone years. What was meant by 5 years at the feet of the elders six daysa week for more than four hours a day.....Personally, I would like to see thismisused 5 years changed to hours, because maybe a tourist comes once ayear for two weeks and spends ten - twenty hours on the mat with the

elders, that sure is not what 5 years was meant to be !

Fourth Level: This is a uncrowned or washed Lucumi Awo or Iya (in ocha)who is in training also called omo awo. In other words they jumped ocha andwent direct to IFA. Let me also note, that I am in agreement, usually this isanother area that is compromised. The reason it is compromised again is$$$. Many odu suggest itefa, or even strongly suggest it BUT notimmediately. The only odu that I know of that states clearly itefa in IFA isthe only salvation and there is an immediate need is iroso melli. This is whatI call a "demand" odu. The others are suggested, and that is a monumentaldifference, that many compromise on.

Fifth Level: Mano (men) or cofa (women) de Orula in Lucumi, this ceremonys called isefa in Yorubaland and in Cuba also known as awofaca, it is alsocalled one or the first hand of Ifa. These are not priests of Orula ( Orunmila)yet they do have a relation with him.

There are other ranks, but these are the basics. A few notes: 1) Awo is morecorrect in Lucumi, yet often we say Babalawo as a sign of respect, not reallyrank as you might think, because of the differences I have described. Withineach level tenure of length of time is the secondary qualifier for rank so as

they say in Yorubaland if you were born one breath or day older the firstborn is the senior and the later born is the junior. HOWEVER.. tenure is resetat each level, thus a crowned awo never outranks someone with wanaldo(cuchillo) or someone with Olofin.. etc. Remember rank always has the lastword, but tenure is much more beloved and often respected than rank alone.Hopefully you understand a bit better about the women priests in LucumiIFA, and why they can't have Olofin, and why they should not be birthingothers in IFA through itefa. I can't speak much more about Olofin in yourquestions.....than I already have. Hopefully, we will get some Iyanifa inLucumi who are less ambitious and more dedicated to promoting our system

correctly.