FA

God

Fa designates, among the Fon of Benin and the neighbouring peoples of Togo, at once the vodun of destiny and the divination system that allows it to be questioned. Fa is the word of Mawu-Lisa addressed to humans: he reveals the share of destiny, the kpoli, attributed to each person at birth. The diviner, called bokonon, questions Fa by handling sixteen oil-palm nuts whose positions trace signs, the du; their combinations form 256 figures, each bound to a corpus of narratives, proverbs and prescriptions that the diviner interprets for the consultant. Come from Yoruba country, notably from Ife, this geomancy established itself at the court of Abomey, where the kings consulted Fa before every important decision. Initiation into Fa gives rhythm to the religious life of Fon men, and Legba, messenger of the vodun, remains inseparable from the divinatory apparatus of which he is the mischievous interpreter. The ethnologist Bernard Maupoil gave the classic study of it in 1943. In the Americas, the related system of Ifá endures, notably in Cuba with the babalaos and in Brazil, while in Haiti Vodou divination has taken other forms.