Ofun She

Iyalashe the mayombera

Orunmila had a son with a woman named Iyalashe, a mayombera who worked powerful sorcery but was very careless in her personal hygiene. Iyalashe quarreled with Orunmila and went off to live in the wilderness while she was pregnant. There she gave birth to her son and nursed him, but at night the eyo would come out of her prenda and suck the milk from her breasts. In the morning, Iyalashe would feed her son without washing her breasts, and the child fell gravely ill because he swallowed the venom the eyo left on them. Orunmila realized that his son must already have been born and sent Elegbara into the wilderness to find him, for he knew the child’s health would be in danger in his mother’s care. Elegbara found the child sleeping outside a hut, at the foot of a cardón cactus, beside an eyo that watched over him. The eyo attacked Elegbara, who caught it with a hooked staff and made it his slave. He then took the child and brought him to Orunmila, but the mother never asked after the fate of her son nor that of her eyo. When Orunmila saw the child, he recognized him as his son because he saw on his head that he had ogbegan. Orunmila performed a sodde for him and saw, through the Ifá Ofun Shewe, that the child had venom inside him. To cure him, Orunmila performed an ebbo with filtered river water, powdered coral and jet, a cardón leaf, inzo of eyo, one akuko and two adie dun dun. He then prepared an ikoko with the river water, the cardón leaf and the powdered coral and jet, and gave it to the child to drink. The child vomited up all the venom in his stomach and recovered thanks to Orunmila’s care.

At night the woman has sexual relations and the man sucks her breasts; in the morning, without washing them, she nurses her child, and so she makes him ill through lack of personal hygiene.

The beggar and the king

Once there was a king of a town who fell gravely ill, and all the physicians of the kingdom gathered to treat his case. Although the physicians determined that the king was beyond saving, a man dressed in rags offered to save him and prepared a brew with an herb that cured him in three days.

The king, grateful, offered Orunmila whatever he wished from his kingdom, but he refused every offer and accepted only a banquet in his honor. Orunmila, however, realized he was at risk of betraying the king and decided not to appear at the palace. The physicians, enraged, hired Oggún to kill him, but Orunmila stayed hidden.

At last the king found him and invited him to eat, but Orunmila refused to accept any reward, and the king decreed that everything done in the kingdom and the palace must be reckoned with Orunmila.

The thieves and the litter of pigs

There was a farmer who kept a large litter of pigs, among them a breeding sow and one of the last piglets to be born, which was very thin and failed to thrive. The piglet noticed that every day one of his brothers disappeared, taken by thieves who came at night and stole one pig daily. Only the mother sow, who was already old, and this thin piglet were left in the pen.

That night, the thieves, seeing that only these two animals remained, left without taking them, saying: «one is thin and the other is the mother sow.» The thieves left open the gap through which they entered, and in the morning the piglet said to his mother: «let us go out this way and hide deep in the forest,» and so they did. They ended up in a tangled, overgrown part of the forest where there was a herd of wild boars, and they settled down to live among them.

The owner of the litter, seeing the open gap and the absence of the sow and the thin piglet, went out into the forest to search for them. After much walking, he came upon the herd of wild boars and among them saw his sow and the piglet. When he approached the herd, the boars blocked his way and, furious and grunting, attacked him. The farmer had to flee and climb a tree until the herd of boars, his piglet and the sow disappeared into the distance. Thus the thin piglet and the breeding sow saved their lives and won their freedom.

The crown of the parrot’s feather and the memory of Obatalá

This is a story about Obatalá, a prophet and diviner in the city of Ake, who was respected and loved by his people for his great knowledge and wisdom, thanks to the Ashe that Olofin had granted him. His memory, however, began to fail because of the vast amount of knowledge he had acquired, and his enemies laid a trap to shame him and make him lose his standing before his people and Olofin.

Obatalá went to see Orunmila, and an osode was performed in which it was seen that what he was going through was due to the loss of his Ashe. Orunmila marked an ebbo and obori eleda for him so that he would not lose his memory and his Ashe, and advised him to carry his hat with the parrot feather.

Olofin summoned Obatalá and told him to go to the town of Adowa, explaining what he was to do there. Obatalá forgot his hat and his parrot feather, which left him tense and distressed, for he knew he might forget part of the message Olofin had given him.

His enemies went to Olofin to tell him of Obatalá’s condition, and Olofin decided to see for himself and set out for Adowa. Obatalá was already there with the people and began to deliver Olofin’s message, but he faltered as he tried to remember it all. His parrot, however, noticed Obatalá’s forgetfulness and brought him his cap and his feather.

Seeing that his parrot had brought him the things he had forgotten, Obatalá delivered Olofin’s message without faltering, and the people freed him from his enemies. Thus Obatalá received his Ashe once more and the blessing of Olofin, thanks to Orunmila.

The eyo and the omo of Orunmila

Orunmila had had a love affair with an obini named Iyalashe, who was a mayombera and worked very strong sorcery. When she became pregnant she quarreled with Orunmila and went off into the wilderness, where she worked her prenda with ejela, which was the maja de Santa María snake. Later Iyalashe took to living with ejela, and it would put its tail into her private parts, and ejela would ejaculate into her and suck at her breasts; afterwards she would nurse her son, who was Ofun Shere, and a hardness began to form in his stomach, disfiguring him until he looked like a freak of nature.

There she gave birth to her son, who received the name Ofun Shewe and was the son of Orunmila; afterwards she went her way, and ejela was suckled on her milk. As that milk carried a venom, it kept forming a hardness in his stomach. One day Elegbá, at Orunmila’s command, went out into the wilderness to gather some birds and came upon the child. He was startled to see him, for the boy lay resting against a cardón cactus. When Elegbá went to pick him up, ejela lunged at Elegbá, who snared it with his hooked staff and made it his slave, carrying the child away.

When Orunmila saw him, he recognized him as his son, for he had ogbegan on his leri; he then cast his Ifá for him and saw this Ifá, which told him the child had venom inside. He then performed the ebbo, and the child vomited up all the venom from his mother’s milk and grew up healthy and normal, developing all his divinatory faculties and becoming an awo of great power on the earth, which was that of his father Orunmila.

The king and the bastard son

There was a king who used to go hunting both in his own kingdom and in other lands. One day, while he was hunting in the forest with his retinue, a great storm broke out and they made for the nearest town to take shelter. On the way, the king said to his companions: «Since no one knows us in that town, we will pass as traders on our way to do business in the neighboring town, so that no one learns I am the king. I do not want anyone attempting against my life. And at the same time, we can enjoy ourselves without my rank standing in the way.»

When the king and his retinue arrived in the town, they stayed the night at the house of the head of the community, who gave them lodging until the storm passed and held a feast for them, as was the custom in that place for any stranger. During the feast, the king fell in love with a dancer and made her so many promises that she finally yielded to his advances, and he even gave her a ring as a keepsake.

From that union the dancer became pregnant, and after a few days the king left the town, promising he would come back for her on his return. But the years passed and the king never thought of her again. The dancer had a son, and as the boy grew, his greatest longing was to know his father; his mother told him he had been a trader who died on an expedition, and that all he had left behind was the ring she kept.

One day the young man went to the house of Orunmila, who made a divination for him and told him that his greatest desire was to know who his father was, but that first he had to make a rogation. The young man performed the rogation, and Orunmila told him to carry the ebbo to the meeting point of two rivers. As the young man was carrying the ebbo, he came upon the king, who was out hunting. The king asked him what he was doing there, and the young man explained why he had come. During the conversation, the king noticed the ring the boy was wearing and asked who had given it to him. That is how the king discovered he had a son, and he helped him.

The adopted daughter of Ofun She

Ofun She was a man deeply respectful of his home, a clean person in every sense. His house was furnished with pieces and objects covered in white cloth, and he himself dressed in white. He married a woman who longed for children, but time passed and she could not conceive. One day she visited a friend and found that she had given birth to a beautiful girl. The woman fell in love with the child and asked her friend to let her raise her. Seeing such insistence, the girl’s mother agreed.

The girl grew and disturbed Ofun She’s peace. She was very mischievous and bold. Ofun She kept a room that was never opened except in the first days of the year. The room was draped in white and held a white staircase with 16 steps. At the top of the staircase stood a bust covered with a white cloth, as if it were an altar. One day, the disobedient girl opened the door of the room, climbed the staircase and saw what Ofun She kept covered.

Ofun She, in great sorrow, sacrificed the girl at once for her disobedience. On learning of the tragedy, Ofun She’s wife could not bear the grief and suffered a heart attack that caused her death. Ofun She was left without wife or anyone in his home, and he made the girl a saint in his memory.

CLARIFICATION: When he sees the door open he becomes enraged and rushes to find out why the door is open.

The path where oratory was born

PARA MAMU: Iyefa, dew gathered with a sponge passed over the wet grass, juice of plantain stalk, a teaspoonful of bicarbonate, to be drunk on an empty stomach.

There was a young woman who was constantly mistreated by her family and had at times even been thrown out of her house, which made it very hard for her to survive. She had a suitor named Okana Logbe, but at the same time she kept sexual relations with another man. One day she found she was pregnant, without knowing who the father was. The young woman fled the town where she lived and arrived at a friend’s house, where she stayed until it was time to give birth. When she delivered, she bore a beautiful boy, whom she placed in a wooden basket and set upon the river so the current would carry him away.

Near that place, on the banks of the river, there was a small village called Ofun She, and a humble woman who was washing clothes in the river saw the basket. The child began to cry, and when the women and some fishermen heard him, they went to where the woman stood and took the child in. They brought him to the bank, and everyone there came to see him and took charge of him, naming him Ofun She.

Ofun She was a small village whose inhabitants believed only in the Eggun, and all were fanatically devoted to a single creed, convinced that only by that path would they reach perfection. Given their fanaticism for spiritism, they allowed no one who professed another religion to live there, so it may be said that they kept a spiritual wall around the town and its people. Olofin saw that in the land of Ofun She its inhabitants rejected the Santo and Ifá with their moral rules of coexistence for the material betterment of all, so one day he summoned Obatalá and ordered him to go to that land to address the material things needed to achieve the true and complete happiness of all.

And so the walls of fanaticism were opened for belief in Ifá and Osha to enter. At that time, the child found in the river was 16 years old and lived sad and downcast, for he had long known that he was an orphan abandoned by his parents and that he truly knew none of his blood relatives. For that reason he had grown withdrawn and evasive, having lost the joy of his youth. Obatalá arrived in that town elegantly dressed in white and said to the people: «I come sent by Olofin to gather you all and speak to you of the things you must address to achieve true happiness and respect among yourselves. And so, the mental walls you have raised around this land are opened, and I will explain it to you in three treatises.»

The day Obatalá finished explaining the first treatise to those people, he understood that they did not accept it, so he said to them: «All who have understood the meaning of what I explained, raise your right hand.» Obatalá said: «Ofun She is the only one who has understood what I have explained, so I will take him as my helper.» Ofun She began to work with Obatalá, and hatred and misunderstanding toward him were born. As the day approached when Obatalá had to deliver his final legacy from Olofin, he realized his memory was failing and he could not recall what he had to say. He then sent for Ofun She with an eyele fun fun.

When my father casts his word, no one can stop it. For that reason, Orunmila himself, in order to consult Ogodo, is not the owner of the Abalashe (the oracle of Ogodo’s divination). Orunmila represents nothing more than the sight, and in that primitive time when no human beings existed, the office of Adifa (consulting Ifá). But Orunmila sees all and knows all — past, present and future — for he is the god of Ifá. He turns the rotation of the world, which is represented by the rainbow (Ochumare).

This Orisha descends only in Africa, and his seat is in the territory of Iyawo, which means «iyawo adorned with cowries,» representing peace. He carries a flag crossed with a cord woven of cowries and a small rod that looks like a staff, for it has curves in the handle and four or five feet. This Oshumare displays his emblem in the sky, symbolizing a maja snake trying to seize its own tail but never reaching it. You see the rainbow showing half its body while the other half passes beneath the earth. It is ruled by Agbon Niregun, the God of Ifá, who is «Ira es Ela,» the savior.

But nature is so vast that no one knows its secret. In all, the rainbow is a maja whose body the God of Ifá divided into 21 rings, keeping the head and the tail, which is what makes the head turn. It represents the beginning of the world and of all things that have been and are yet to be. The tail is the end of all things created on this planet. The 21 rings are the 21 paths of all the Santos, chiefly since there is an Obatalá and an Elegbá who has 101 paths. Divide the 365 days of the year among the 256 oddun of Ifá, and that was the result.

You will see that the result falls among the 21 rings: it comes to 5 with 4 left over, which are the 4 cardinal points of the oracle of Ifá that we know here as the 4 paths of the board of Shangó. Within our religion, they mark the four paths ruled by the signs of Ifá, which are represented by the 256 Oddun. Later they span the 365 days of the year. The days of the week are ruled by the heavenly bodies in this oracle of Ifá.

On this path, Shangó is Ogodo, which means «shepherd of sheep,» those who read the signs in the oracle of all living beings upon the earth. That is why the children of Shangó are envied throughout the world, for they possess all the qualities a king needs over his fellows, with that confidence that characterizes him and that pride nature bestowed upon him at birth.