"Orisa Lifestyle is an ancient tradition, responsible for the production of museum-quality art in bronze, stone and wood. Of equal significance, however, the folk disciplines associated with Orisa Lifestyle are exceedingly practical:
According to the great Yoruba scholar N.A. Fadipe, 'One woman takes maize as her raw material and specializes in preparing it for consumption in one of about a dozen different forms in which it is consumed. Another specializes in preparing the same raw material in still another form. Another woman takes one kind of beans for her raw material and prepares it for consumption in one of half dozen forms in which it is made available in the market. They (the women) are the potters… They also manufacture soap. One class of women prepares indigo dye-stuffs for sale to another class of women who specialize in the actual dying. |
Sign up for a free eBook!Other specialties of women are the manufacture of shea butter and the extraction of oil from the palm fruit, both for domestic use and for export… Some devote their whole time to the making of beads. Others are engaged in the making of camwood dye for beautifying the body. There are mat makers, basket makers, the makers of plaited wareof many kinds of vegetable, in the form of bags and water-proof covers for loads…'*
In most instances, these products double as sacred foods to be offered to the orisa. Thus, the foundation of the devotion is not priestly, but practical. Orisa Lifestyle is the byproduct of orisa economics. Ifa teaches us that EARTH IS A MARKETPLACE. The orisa are meant to SUPPORT your efforts to thrive in the shaping and expansion of orisa economics. Learn more in the Fundamentals of Orisa Lifestyle: www.OrisaLifestyle.com. Live the Medicine" Obafemi Origunwa, MA | www.ObafemiO.com *Sociology of the Yoruba. Page 152 |