Yoruba TraditionSacred Site
Igbo-Orun (Forest of Heaven)
A sacred forest believed to be a physical connection point between the earthly realm (Aye) and the heavenly realm (Orun). Such forests throughout Yorubaland are protected as dwelling places of the Orishas and sites for important rituals and initiations.
About Igbo-Orun (Forest of Heaven)
Forest that is not a mapped park
Igbo-Orun, "forest of heaven," names sacred woodland as a joint between Aye and Orun in Yoruba speech: groves where orisha are fed, initiations run, and hunting is forbidden. It is a class of place more than one GPS pin. Ifa verses assume such forests; they do not publish a tourist prospectus. The holiness is prohibition and presence, not architecture.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Ifa oral corpus (grove / igbo verses)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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