Ways to Communicate to Egbe Effectively

For every Yoruba deity, there is always a way through which its devotees hear the message of Olodumare. Ifa for instance serves above all by being the "spoke man" for all deities.  It speaks through Opele (divination chain), Ikin  (palm nuts) and through kola nuts. 

This write-up talks about three effective channels adopted by Egbe in telling its devotees what  & what not to do. Egbe speaks to its followers via three major channels.

Clairvoyance

Kola nuts

Cowry shells

Clairvoyance 

This is the process of perceiving objects that are not accessible to the senses. In other words,  it is the ability to perceive events that are beyond the ordinary human senses. These could be events in the past, present, or future. 

Egbe devotees (not all) perhaps priests or priestess have this ability. They can read minds, predict accurately plus proffering solutions to impending problems.

Salami 2014 shared a story of one Baba Falola Adesokan a clairvoyant priest of egbe. He (Salami) said he (Falola) sees events like in a movie- -but in flashes. When delving into the life of a client. He says, he sees the flashes and hears words.  This Pa Falola has had this gift from his youth but was later reinforced when he was initiated to Egbe. Salami narrated.

Clairvoyance serves as an effective channel to communicate with Egbe.

Kolanuts Divination

Almost all of the 201 Irunmole adopt the kola nuts style of divination including Egbe.  It is more of a "Yes" or "No" dialogue. 

 After praying to Egbe for whatever desires of the devotee, questions are being asked from Egbe and the same procedure of throwing kola nuts is followed. Then answer will reciprocate from Egbe. Kola nuts to be used mostly are that of four valves. 

One thing about the Egbe kola nuts divination is that, unlike most other Orisa, that allows their devotees to eat part of the kola nuts used for divination, Egbe devotees usually do not eat them rather they place them beside the pot (Aawe) as offering.

Cowry shells

Kolanuts and clairvoyance appear to have been the original ways of speaking, but cowry shells came into the scene because of their general acceptability within the Orisa circle to which Egbe belongs.  According to one of the chief priestesses of Egbe,  the cowry shells used by Egbe have undergone some modifications from the original sixteen cowries. Today, Egbe is said to use any of:

Eerindinlogun containing 16 cowries
Eejo:  containing eight cowries
Eefa: containing 6 cowries
Eerin: four cowries.

What determines which of these would be employed is versatility of the priest using them. Which ever is used,  the same excellent results are obtained.  (Salami 2014).