The sixteen are learned in an order treated as one of seniority, but published sequences do not agree in every particular, and agreement is weakest past the first few positions. Bascom treated the order of the figures as a subject needing its own study rather than a fact he could simply report.
What would resolve this A systematic survey recording the ordering taught in a range of identified lineages and localities, with the informants and dates named, so that variation can be mapped rather than averaged.
OpenEthnography of West African divination; Yoruba studiesWilliam Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa