Ogbe Kana

Other aspects of the sign

Ogbe kana (ogbe okana): patakíes, meaning, advice, works or ebboses and secrets

Meaning and Advice

Relationships and conduct

Do not go on outings and do not put on a mask; it does not suit you.

Be careful with hidden love affairs; they can be found out.

Your husband and your mother are looking for you. Answer to your partner.

Someone is watching or following you. Be obedient, or you will be taken.

You are three siblings. You live high up.

Work situations and dangers

If you are a foreigner, be careful at your job. Someone wants to harm you so that you are thrown out.

It all comes from envy. If you make ebbo, you will be protected.

Do not argue stubbornly. Receive the messages that reach you.

If there is a sick person in your house, the traditional reading of this sign warns that death is watching them.

Spiritual and ancestral life

Attend to the Santos and to your house. You have gained nothing from wandering from one place to another.

Refresh your house. Return to your centre.

Give food to a departed one. Attend to the charge that was given to you.

Care for and respect your father.

Feed your head as soon as possible.

Ritual instructions

For that awo, Shangó must be placed six days in the yard with amala, a pupua flag, otí and ashere. He will win a war.

You are going to govern. You have the current in the body.

Oggún claims what you are seeking.

You wish to move close to a river or a ditch.

Lamp to draw someone near at the foot of Oshún

The particulars of the interested parties are written on a piece of paper. Inso of ologbo (she-cat), rue, igi, llamao, poplar and amansa guapo are added.

It is bound with yellow and pupua ou, placed inside an igba, and quicksilver, sweet wine, oñí, yellow precipitate, valerian powder and oil are added.

It is lit for 5 days at the foot of Oshún. It is then taken to the river and one says:

“Oshún iya mí, que así como corren tus aguas, que así mismo fulano corra detrás de mí.”

Once it is fulfilled, two adie aperi are given as an offering.

The Awo’s recommendation

Ogbe Kana should plant prickly pear around the house. It is also recommended to place a sea urchin inside an igba in front of Elegbá.

The birth of Irofa and the divining board

At the beginning of creation, Orunmila was a close friend of the elephant. Together they would go deep into the bush, where they did various kinds of work to earn their daily living.

Orunmila, however, did not have the elephant’s strength and could not work at his pace. They went on like that for three years and three months. In the end, Orunmila managed to gather only enough money to buy himself a white suit, while Ayakanu (the elephant) had grown rich.

Lacking means, Orunmila entrusted his suit to the elephant to keep until his return. But when he came back to the bush, he found Ayakanu wearing his white suit. When he asked about the money, the elephant answered: «You never asked me to keep anything».

The two argued and fought, but Orunmila could not defeat him, since the elephant was far stronger. They parted: Orunmila took the road to Ado without his suit, while Ayakanu went on along the road to Alo, wearing it.

On his way, Orunmila met a hunter who told him he was after an elephant. Orunmila said: «I have just seen one dressed in white that took the road to Alo».

The hunter followed that direction, found the elephant and killed it with his arrows. On opening it, he found the white suit inside. He cut off its head, its tail and its tusks, and took them to Orunmila as a token of respect.

From the tail, Orunmila made the irofa. From the elephant’s forehead, he made the divining board.

The white suit stands for the intestinal membrane, the ala or mantle, of animals.

The wild prickly pear

There was a time when the wild prickly pear had no thorns. It lived surrounded by animals large and small, but it could not prosper.

When the animals passed close by or leaned against it, they ended up hurting its children. Weary of that, it went to Orunmila to tell him its sorrow.

Orunmila made an osode for it and told it that it had to make an ebbo. He then began to make incisions in its body, applying medicinal herbs, and with a special preparation he set spines into those wounds.

From then on, every child that was born came already with thorns, which frightened off those who used to harm it. So its family began to prosper.

Yet as it grew strong, the prickly pear was abandoned by everyone. And since it no longer had company, it went off to live alone in the desert, where nobody could wound it again.

In time, Orunmila found himself caught up in a war. His enemies greatly outnumbered him. He then remembered the favour he had done the wild prickly pear and went to ask for its help.

Indifferent, it told him it could not help him. But Orunmila insisted, reminding it of the sacrifice and the favour he had done it in the past.

Hearing this, the prickly pear had no choice but to go with him and help him defeat his enemies.

This path teaches that there are ungrateful people who, once their problem is solved, forget those who reached out a hand to them.

They go about running

On this path, the fox was very rich and had a thick tail. She was ordered to carry out a working, but she refused.

In time, a flea got into her ear and began to bother her. She paid it no attention. Then another flea came, a male, and they began to breed.

The fox could no longer keep still. She was full of fleas, always restless, running from one place to another, desperate.

Worn out, she went to consult Orunmila. He made a divination reading for her and said: «You are going through hardship and running without stop. If you want to free yourself, you must make a working and take it to the sacred place of Ibu Losa».

The fox hesitated: «And with this will I solve all my problems?». Orunmila answered her: «Do it and you will see».

The fox followed the advice. She prepared the working, took a bell and went to the river. Reaching the bank, she rang the bell.

Oshún, who was already waiting for her, told her: «Come in here and go on over there. Nothing will happen to you».

The fox obeyed and all the fleas disappeared, even those on her head and her tail. She was left completely clean.

From then on, each time the problem came back, Orunmila reminded her that she had to repeat the same process.

Poisoned fruit

On this path, Orunmila decided to take a walk and came to a farm. There stood a tree with beautiful fruit, but the fruit was poisoned.

The people of the place were at war with another town and used that fruit to poison their enemies. It was their way of fighting them.

Orunmila, not knowing this, jumped the fence and went up to the tree. The fruit was so appealing that he did not hesitate: he picked some and began to eat.

The inhabitants, seeing him, shouted: «They are poisoned!». But it was already too late. Orunmila had eaten several and was poisoned.

This path teaches that one must not step into other people’s affairs nor enter where one has not been invited. It can cost a life.

Ambition

There was once a tribe governed by a just king. He had laid down a clear law: whoever caused a death was to pay with his own life.

In that same tribe there lived an awo of great wisdom, direct counsellor to the king, and also a greedy merchant who always wanted more than Olofin had granted him.

This man was not content to trade within his own land; he also did business with neighbouring tribes, no matter what methods he used to grow rich.

Moved by curiosity rather than by faith, he went to consult the awo. After the reading of Ifá, the awo told him:

«You are a man insatiable in the pursuit of wealth. You do not only want money, you also aspire to be king. But that can lead you to ruin. Make an ebbo before it is too late».

The recommended ebbo included: a ruffled rooster (akuko chacharas), two doves (eyele meyi), a beef bone, afun fun, gbogbo, eku, eya, awado and opolopo owo (much money).

But the man mocked the awo and did not obey. Some time later he conspired with others to overthrow the king, exactly as he had been warned.

Olofin, who sees everything, inspired the awo to make a new reading, and the awo warned the king to make an ebbo so as not to be betrayed.

The king did so. On the day of the coup, the man killed one of the sovereign’s loyal men with a machete. But he was captured and brought before the king.

He denied everything, but the awo consulted with Ifá, and Ifá revealed the truth. Even so, the man kept insisting on his innocence.

Then the awo asked that the body of the murdered loyal man be brought in. When it was placed before him, he said:

«This murder was committed out of ambition. Olofin will make the truth known».

The order was given to strike the body with a beef shank bone, and the body came back to life to name the man as its killer.

So he paid with his life for the greed and ambition he never wished to master.

Moni Boshe

The owner of this sign must not part from Shangó if he is to overcome difficulties. Eya tutu must always be given to Shangó.

In the land of Ganga ni lo there lived an awo of Shangó named Moni Boshe. Governing his land was a trial: nothing he did worked and his people fell ill.

Shangó, his father, advised him to stay close to him and to keep away from his mother, Eni Ofo Tomillo, who taught him nothing but harmful things and dominated him emotionally.

Moni Boshe could not find stability with any woman. His mother used a stone called ota, anointed it with palm oil and wrapped it in a black handkerchief. That made any woman reject him with disgust.

Worried for his son, Shangó prepared ero (sacred powder) and a white hen, and said:

«Oni Lele Mafun Oporosun Awo Moni Boshe Maliye Ibarere Lekun Laye Iya Moni Boshe»

He placed the hen over the ota stone and Moni Boshe’s energy weakened. Taking that moment, Shangó carried him far from his mother, to Ganga ni lo, so that he might govern with purpose.

He warned him: «It will cost you, but you must hold fast to me; I am the only one who can save you».

Moni Boshe did not obey. He remained under his mother’s influence. The town fell into decline, illness and hopelessness.

The people gathered and begged him for help. Moni Boshe sought out Shangó, and Shangó came down to that land, waking hope in everyone.

A working was done, but things grew worse. The healthy fell ill, the ill died. Shangó made the situation harder so that his son would learn.

Moni Boshe, on the edge of collapse, fell weeping at his father’s feet. He asked forgiveness, promised to obey him and begged him to forgive his mother so that she could help him spiritually.

They went to see Eni Ofo Tomillo. Seeing her son devastated, she asked forgiveness and promised never again to use the secret of the stone. She admitted her selfishness and begged him to understand.

Moni Boshe forgave her and asked Shangó what he had to do to save his land. Shangó answered:

«Find an eyá (bird) and, beside a ceiba, call me as is proper and hand it over together with your leri (head)».

When the ceremony was finished, Shangó laid his hands on his head and told him: «Now you will return to your land and little by little you will save it, though there will always be trials, illness and problems».

Lafiaku

On this path, Lafiaku was the spirit of Olofin in the bush. Oro was his armed arm, with a fearsome trunk.

Lafiaku was feared by all thanks to his powerful tusks, which opened gaps with brutal force, and to his violent trunk that shook the bush.

He was born with epo and reached his power in Ikaru. But his power corrupted him: he rebelled against everyone and even hurled himself against Olofin to destroy Orunmila’s house.

Orunmila consulted with Ifá and the sign Ogbe Kana came out. The oracle indicated that he had to make an ebbo and place it at the entrance of the house.

When Lafiaku arrived, he found the ebbo, swallowed it and died from the pins hidden inside it.

Then Olofin’s edemoles, Lajomo and Laiye, cut off his head (leri), gave Orunmila the tail to make the ukere, and his tusks for the ritual of Irofa.

From his forehead the ateponfa was born, and from his cranial cavity it was revealed to Orunmila that this was the Ikoko Oru Oddun.

There the secrets of the Oddun were consecrated for the first time, to be received in image by the children of Orunmila: the Babalawos.

Ayakanu

The elephant Ayanaku had the habit of leaning against trees to rest.

But one day, as he leaned on one of them, the tree gave way and the elephant fell to the ground, never able to rise again.

The traditional reading of this Oddun warns of the need to guard against venereal disease. It may happen that, by lying with a sick woman, the person contracts a grave or incurable illness.

It also warns of the danger of becoming impotent if sexual energy is not cared for or if the person is the target of a harmful spiritual working.

The person should be protected from any working or dark influence that could affect them physically or spiritually.