Opon Ifa Divination Board
The opon ifa is the round wooden tray on which the Yoruba babalawo, the priest of divination, reads the will of the orisha Orunmila: dusted with wood powder, the tray receives the patterns traced as the diviner casts the palm nuts or swings the divination chain and interprets the emerging odu. The rim of the tray is carved with the face of Eshu, the messenger who carries the signs, and with figures of proverb scenes, and the flat face is kept smooth so the powder can be drawn and redrawn again and again through the reading. The tray is treated as sacred: it is never set directly on the ground,