The Road, and Who Travels It

Movement between the halves is the practical content of Yoruba religion. Before birth a person kneels before Olodumare and receives ori, the destiny or inner head, which is carried into Aye and can be improved or spoiled but not exchanged. At death the person returns, and if the life was well made is received among the ancestors, who may be reborn into the same lineage; egungun masquerade brings them back into the town in visible form for a season. In between, the orisha are the parties one deals with, each with its own devotees, foods, prohibitions and shrines. The road across is not open to anyone at will, which is why divination exists.

Ifa, presided over by Orunmila, is the system by which a diviner casts and reads figures to learn what Orun has to say about a matter in Aye, and Eshu is the one who carries the offering and the message, which is why he is served first. The atlas records Orun in the Heavens grouping because it is the abode of the supreme being and of the honoured dead, and notes that the fit is inexact: Orun is a cosmological half rather than a reward, and the sources describing orun rere and orun buruku are describing reception by the ancestors more than a sentence passed on a soul.