The Diloggun ≫ Santeria divination system in Cuba

Within the Yoruba religion A complex divination system called Diloggun is recorded, which bases its predictions on the position occupied by the snails once they are thrown onto the mat by the Oba or by the santero's own hands during the Itá or the descent of an Orisha.

It is a millennial prediction system, it is estimated that our religious ancestors used it in their native continent even before being brought to the new world.

The snail is the piece through which the Diloggún is manifested, which is why it must be treated with respect since it is considered the mouth of the Orishas.

It collects the Pataki that the first Yorubas used the snails as payment currency to carry out their trades and later these became part of their sacred rituals, not without first having acquired the consecrations required to undertake this purpose.

Essential requirements to prophesy through the Diloggún

The Diloggún It is made up of sixteen snails, which must remain impeccably clean when going down, these have the peculiarity of having one of their open or perforated portions, the same portion that is in charge of speaking with the religious.

The account regarding the position that these snails occupy once they are thrown onto the mat is what makes possible the prediction of the odduns through which the Orishas provide advice to the iyawó or santero.

Eleggua the owner of the roads is the only deity that has twenty-one snails, the rest of the Orishas have eighteen of these specimens, of which only sixteen speak, the rest of these are named Adeles or witnesses and they become very useful when lost one of the sixteen main snails when the witness takes his place on the mat.

The snails have the design of being impartial before the decision of the Orishas, so it is necessary that they reproduce in an exact and inviolable way the messages that the African deities send to their children, asserting the maxim of not favoring any religious over another similar.

Each spread of the snails represents one of the seventeen oddunes or signs of the Santeria rule starting from the first sign that was born in the Osha, called zero, which is unknown in many religious houses, until the manifestation of the sixteen subsequent odduns, those that obey avatars carried out by the Orishas throughout their existence reflected in the patakis treasured by the Yoruba Pantheon.