Osa Trupon

Where bitter güiros were not known

On this path bitter güiros were not known, and for that reason people had to go out searching for water. One day, looking down at the ground, they saw that very small fruit and took it to Orunmila. He told the farmer it was something bad and that he should not touch it. On a day when he saw this Ifá, he asked the man for a large one, and the countryman brought him a big, fully grown güiro. Orunmila wove that güiro with scorpions.

The child of Ifá who has never had a business of his own will have one.

Where oriolo rules over the leri

There was a time when Orioló was despised by everyone and no one held him in any regard. The Leri claimed that she was the obá and ruled over the body and over the orifice, but Orioló answered that he was the king. The Leri challenged him to prove it, and so Orioló closed himself shut.

One day passed, then two, and the Leri felt nothing. On the third day she began to feel somewhat heavy, and the stomach and the intestine were uncomfortable. By the sixth day Elú (the belly) was swollen and the liver hard as a stick, and the Leri began to feel very ill. Then Elegguá (the fever) made his appearance — purgatives were not known back then — and the fever worsened by the tenth day, because by now everything was working badly, and the Leri, the arms and the legs could no longer move.

What went in did not come out; the Leri could not rise from the mat to carry the body, and so she and all the organs had to beg Orioló to open. In this way Orioló showed how important he is, even though no one gives him any regard. And there he remains, in the dark, despised by all.

The daughters of Olokun

Olokun had five daughters with Olosa and four with Olona. Their names were: Omi Losá Oruko, Omi Lona Oruku, Omi Losá Lashe, Omi Lona Lashe, Omi Losá Bokun, Omi Lona Bokun, Omi Losá Orun, Omi Lona Orun and Omi Losá Foshe.

These young women lived with their mothers: the daughters of Olosa in the estuary, and the daughters of Olona in the lake. At the bottom of the sea, beside Olokun, lived another of his daughters, named Agana Eri, a tall and beautiful girl whose body was deformed, and that filled her with sorrow. Even though her father showered her with attentions to ease her suffering, the daughters of Olokun by Olona and Olosa — young, very beautiful and with marvellous bodies — drew the admiration of everyone who saw them.

Olokun asked his daughters to come to his undersea kingdom and spend some time with him. The young women accepted and filled that place with joy and happiness. Olokun was delighted with his nine daughters, but Agana Eri felt sadness, envy and jealousy towards her sisters, and so she plotted a way to be rid of them.

The daughters of Olokun wore an inshe around their necks, made by the awó of their father’s kingdom, Awo Nifa Omolozain Orun Okana Yeku, an expert in Ozain and a priest of eggun. That inshe allowed them to live both in the water and on land, and it had been consecrated by the awó in the Ozain that Olokun kept, which the same awó had built.

On a dark night, Agana Eri left the kingdom and went to the shore of the sea. There she made a pact with the fishermen: she would hand over to them nine maidens her father wanted to be rid of, without the girls knowing anything about it. All they had to do was return to her the amulets the young women wore on their breasts.

Agana Eri went back to Olona and Olosa and assured them that Olokun intended to keep their daughters for himself. She persuaded them to start calling the girls and make them return. Beforehand, Agana Eri had arranged with the fishermen that at the first new moon they would capture the maidens outside the palace. She also asked Olosa and Olona to call their daughters on the first night of the new moon.

The fishermen, filled with greed at Agana Eri’s offer, went to the awó of the town. When he made the reading for them, the awó saw Osa Trupon and warned them that they were about to do something that would bring consequences upon them and leave marks on the generations to come, for so it was written and decided by Olodumare. He made an ebó for them with fish hooks, 10 doves, a rooster, ropes, threads and needles, and two hens that were given to Oshún in a cave of spiders, where the threads and ropes were also thrown. The spiders, stirring at the smell of the blood, became tangled in the threads and formed a net. The rooster was given to Ozain, and the hooks and the doves were kept while the net was cast into the sea.

The day of the new moon arrived and Olosa and Olona began to call their daughters: «laye Laye Omo Olokun Laye Laye Omo Olosa … Laye Laye Omo Olokun Laye Laye Omo Olosa».

And they answered: «iya Orioye Omo Losa Umbo Nitolode Iya Orioye Omo Lona Umbo Nitolode».

That night Agana Eri invited her sisters to gaze at the beautiful new moon. They heard their mothers’ call and set out towards their mothers’ seat, and fell into the net cast by the fishermen, who captured the maidens and handed the amulets over to Agana Eri. The young women were taken to the market to be sold, but lacking the amulet, they died. The fishermen, disheartened, threw the girls back in the net and, with the hooks and the doves, cast them into the sea.

Olokun, noticing the absence of his daughters, sent for the awó he trusted. He cast and saw Osa Trupo, and told Olokun that there was a conspiracy and a betrayal inside his own kingdom, and that an ebó had to be made with two etu, oti, oti pupua, ámala and ila, and that Bromu and Broncia had to be fed. So it was done, and Bromu and Broncia, joining forces, raised a great swell: «bromu Leri Mamu Eye Etu Mamu Oti Broncia Leri Afefe Mamu Eye Etu Mamu Oti Pupua».

The swell brought up from the depths of the sea the net with the bodies of the maidens and the hooks. Olokun’s servants took the net with all it held and carried it before him. Awo Nifa Okana Yeku, who was at his side, ordered the girls taken out of the net and brought before the father’s Ozain the bodies of the young women, the hooks, the pieces of mesh and the doves. He performed the ceremonies for the girls and tied the amulets around their necks. They returned to life, recovered their faculties and told their father what had happened, along with the betrayal of their sister Agana Eri.

Olokun, indignant, sent for his deformed daughter. When she saw her sisters alive, she fainted from the shock. The father’s punishment was to shut her away forever in a castle and to make her carry in her hands a serpent and a mask, as a sign of falsehood and envy, so that no one else would be deceived by her.

Awo Nifa performed the ceremony for Olokun’s daughters with leri of eya, the hooks, the net with which he had made the inshe, and omi of Olona, and he transformed the girls’ bodies into the bodies of fish with the faces of beautiful mermaids, covered by the very net that had served to capture them. From then on the nine daughters of Olokun lived part of the time with their father and part of the time with their mother. Each time the moon changed, they changed their seat.

Since then the fishermen guide themselves by the moon for the run of the catch, but they remembered the songs of Olosa and Olona as a song of ill omen. On hearing them they would move away, and the daughters of Olokun would pass by untroubled.