ABSTRACT
Ifá is seen to be the foundation of Yorùbá culture. This means every aspect of Yorùbá life, including religion, philosophy, science, ideology and so on, has one link or another with Ifá. However, as Ifá is important among the Yorùbá and the world religions, its inherent semiotic values have not been explored especially to resolve some controversial cultural and religious issues relating to some aspects of Yorùbá life such as the Yorùbá beliefs on reincarnation and immortality of soul. This chapter draws substantially from the field of cultural semiotics, since symbolism underlies Ifá divination system It is found out that the concepts of reincarnation and immortality of soul are original to the Yorùbá with the present links of the Yorùbá beliefs on reincarnation and immortality of soul with Ifá cultural semiotic elements such as odù-ifá, ọpọ́n-ifá and ère-ìbejì. It is equally submits that the reincarnation circle begins from two and ends at sixteen. It finally argues that believing that the concepts were borrowed into the Yorùbá cultural and religious belief would erroneously suggest that Ifá as well as ère-ìbejì are “alien” to the Yorùbá belief system.
