Ofun Sa

The tiger and Orunmila

The tiger was Orunmila’s godchild, yet he turned into his enemy and began to bare his claws at him. Orunmila, realizing this, performed an osodde on himself and saw this Ifá, and made ebbó with: a razor and an akuko. When the tiger came to sink his claws into Orunmila, he drew the razor and cut him on the paw, and the hairs got into the wound, and the tiger saw his own blood and died.

Afterwards kobori eleda with obi, omi tuto.

Give eyerbale to the egbo and ask the deities whether the leri go into the ebbó, malaguidi, opolopo owo.

Ifá osobbo

On this path, the day held more power than it does today, and the night was always its rival. The owl, as the most intelligent, was the day’s secretary, and to her the day confided its secrets. The monkey was the owl’s most faithful friend, and in those times she could see by day. Once, the day called the owl to give her a task: to take the light away from the night so that the night would have to pay tribute for having the light of the sun. The day had all the heavenly bodies on its side except the moon, who was the proudest of them all.

The day charged the owl with writing a letter inviting the moon to a feast. The letter had to be written with acids so that, upon reading it, the moon would lose her sight, and the owl would have to wear a mask. The day and the owl shut themselves away so that no one would learn of anything. When the owl went to deliver the letter to the moon, she ran into the monkey and he said to her: «I was hoping to see you. What do you make of what the day intends to do to the moon?» The owl told the monkey everything, but a buzzard who had been listening to it all flew off and told the moon.

The moon came out in defense of the night, casting forth all her cold light. The sun came out in defense of the day, and a tremendous struggle began, which sowed discord. The day found out that the monkey and the owl had betrayed it, and understood that it deserved what had happened, for it should not have trusted people. The day cursed the owl, telling her she would never again see the light of day and that nothing of what happened must be spoken of, forcing her to read the letter without the mask, which left her blind.

Seeing this, the monkey let out a scream and, from the fright, was left mute forever, for the day gave him a liquid prepared for him to drink. So they remained, one without the light of day and the other never to speak again, for having been such gossips.

By this Ifá, those who lend themselves to doing harm receive a punishment from nature; we could cite the mayomberos, spiritists and ozainistas. This punishment can take the form of being left blind, mute, maimed, crippled, etc.

Kaferefun Yalorde (gungun), who is the one who saves, adifafun Olofin, Oduduwa osusa (ojo) and Orunmila.

The cardinal bird

The account you have told me is a tale or legend carrying a valuable lesson about the importance of not betraying someone’s trust, and about the consequences that vengeance can bring.

The tale speaks of a cardinal bird named Itu, on whom Olofin bestowed many virtues. Because of this, the other birds became his enemies and raised false testimony so that the king of the birds would capture him. Even though the king sent numerous battalions to seize him, Itu managed to defeat them thanks to his virtues and to the ashe of Olofin that he possessed.

Finally, the king sent a spy to uncover Itu’s secret and discovered that he kept a pot of water which he used to bring to life wooden figures that killed the king’s soldiers. Itu’s wife, deceived by the king, revealed the secret to him, and so the king managed to capture the cardinal bird.

The Ifá described at the end of the account is a divination reading that speaks of the importance of keeping secrets and of not trusting just anyone, since people can betray our trust out of vengeance or for other reasons. It also refers to the figure of Ozain, an orisha of the Yoruba religion associated with herbs and medicine, which could indicate that the person who receives this Ifá has a special connection with this orisha and may benefit from his powers.

Obini eru eburu

In this account, Aremon, son of a powerful king, decided to seek a wife on his own, since his father had told him to find her himself. Aremon went to Orunmila, who told him that if he performed an ebbó following his instructions, he would find not just one wife, but many. Aremon did everything to the letter and set out hunting in the wilderness with his drum and his spear, until he reached a village where the evil spirits, the Eburu, kept women they had abducted from other places.

Aremon went in and found two young slave girls, who were eager for carnal contact. Just then, all the captive women arrived, and upon seeing Aremon, who was a real man, they went wild. The women were prisoners of the Eburu, who kept them to cook great quantities of food for them and to serve them as women during the night.

Each of the women who spent the night with Aremon described the next day the pleasure she had felt, and so he had to sleep with all the women: old, young, white, mixed, Chinese, black. But one day a very powerful evil spirit arrived and challenged Aremon to a duel. Aremon, however, had already prepared a lavish meal, which the evil spirit devoured greedily.

When the fight came, Aremon slipped away like a cat and seized the spirit by the neck, plunging its head into the river. Aremon did the same with each of the evil spirits that appeared. The women hailed Aremon as a great hero, conqueror of the evil spirits.

When Aremon returned to the kingdom, he brought all the women with him and announced with his drum, to all the men whose wives had been stolen by the spirits, what he had done. In the end he was left with many wives, among them a Chinese woman who was his father’s wife, who had been stolen. Thus was fulfilled the word of Orunmila and the power of Ofun Sa over dominion, Aremon becoming the most powerful man and the most respected chief in all the Yoruba lands.