Acknowledgments
Preface
The Book’s Agenda
Rudiments of Argument and Strategy
Recursive Structure
Introduction: The Question of Truth in the Historiography and Ethnography of Ifá Divination
Truth as an Ethnographic Object
Ifá in West Africa and the Prestige of Truth
Afro-American Religion and the Politics of Its Representation
1. Truth in Anthropology: From Nature and Culture to Recursive Analysis
Evolutionism, “Diffusionism,” Constructivism: The Fall of Truth
Toward a Recursive Analysis of Truth
2. Truth Beyond Doubt: The Alterity of Divination
Divination in Anthropology
Evans-Pritchard on Oracles
Boyer on Divination, Causal Indices, and Truth
Divination and Indubitability
Desiderata for an Analysis of Divinatory Truth
3. Living Ifá: The Matter of Truth
True Encounters
Divinatory Regulation: Javier’s Initiatory Career
Divination and the Path of Initiation
The Matrix of Initiation and the Propulsion of Paths
Living Ifá
Speaking Ifá and the Economy of Learning
Secrets
4. Mythical Transcendence and Ritual Elicitation: The Cosmo-Praxis of Ifá Divination
The Problem with the Problem of Transcendence
Myth and Transcendence
Ritual and Immanence
The Cosmological Problem of Divination
The Liturgy of Ifá Divination
5. The Ontology of Motion: Power, Powder and Vertical Transformation
Ontological Non Sequiturs
Motile Practice—A Choreography of Nuts
Motile Discourse—Talking of Paths
Motile Cosmology—Aché in Divination
An Interlude on the Analysis of Motility—or, the Power of Powder
Motile Ontology—Potential Relations and the Direction of Motion
6. Divinatory Metamorphosis: Symbolism, Interpretation, and the Motility of Meaning
The Problem of Symbolism and the Motility of Meaning
Interrogating Orula
“Speaking the Signo,” “Interpreting the Paths”
Motile Meanings in Divination
7. The Event of Truth: Coincidence, Revelation, Bewilderment
Coincidence, Paths, and the Event of Truth (or Bewilderment)
Motile Truth, Representation and Their Mutual Eclipse
Skepticism and Misunderstanding
8. Definition and Obligation: The Truth of the Oracles
No Lies, No Mistakes
Divination and Definition
Divination and Obligation
Initiation as Ontological Transformation
Equivocations
Conclusion: Anthropological Truth
Divination and Anthropology
Ontography as Antidivination
Epilogue: On Humility
Appendix A: The Naming and Ranking of Divinatory Configurations
Appendix B: “Papers of Ifá”: An Example
Notes
Works Cited
Index