Moforibale / Idobale
BASIC ORISA LESSON
First lesson for an Aborisa
Moforibale means "I touch my head to the ground or floor”, and idobale means "stretching fully prostrated".
These two words are used at times, interchangeably, to mean the same thing but on a deeper look, they are slightly different though the aims and objectives are the same.
The teachings of Orisa seek to break down the ego or the initiate or worshipper without making a fuss about it.
There are two basic standards of doing this within the Orisa community traditionally in Nigeria.
First, is based on the physical age of initiation and it works like this: once you see any orisa priest made before you, you have to give him idobale or iforibale. Sometimes the person who initiates first might be far younger than the person who gives the iforibale, but because he was first initiated, she/he will receive iforibale.
Second, idobale is done by chieftaincy title. There are certain titles that a person receives within the Orisa community that make him or her receive an idobale or iforibale from those who initiated first before him/her
What is idobale?
It is the act of prostrating to a person /priest /or Orisa in the Yoruba culture.
This simply means I have surrendered all my body and all I have to you. In some regions like Egbado men do idobale by putting legs slightly apart ,while women orisa priest place their left leg on their right leg, this also forms part of understanding orisa hand, leg, and body postures.
Priests may also utter "miyika otun" while angling their body to right or "moyika osi "while angling body to the left. This is given to Obas at times.
What is Moforibale? This is just kneeling and touching the head on the floor. Moforibale/ Iforibale just means using your head to touch the floor. It's a sign of respect and surrender.
How does it break the ego down? These postures seek to break the ego and instill a sense of discipline in the Olorisa. When Olorisa constantly does foribale and idobale to different senior orisa priests and at times mean doing it to a far younger person. This helps break and reduce our false sense of pride either based on education or wealth and in turn, brings the person to know the true meaning of respect.
Also note that both mentioned techniques are used for worship of Orisa, building devotion and surrender in us as devotees of Orisa.
Another important aspect of this practice is that when you constantly touch the earth with your head, our elders say that contact imparts wisdom and Ase to develop in the journey of learning to be an Orisa devotee.
When doing iforibale /Idobale for elders, you must utter the praise words of their orisa or call out, in short, their orisa. This is because we believe that an Orisa devotee who does Iforibale /Idobale is worshipping the orisa of the elder’s head via using his or her body.
An example is, If the elder you are doing it for is Obatala - you say -Heeepa Oosa!
For Oya- Heepa Oya
For Osun - Ore yeye oo