Meaning of Osa Di in the Diloggún
- To perform this ritual you need the head of a guinea fowl and a dove, pumpkin seeds, bee honey and mud from the mouth of a crab. Everything is mixed together until it forms a paste.
- A jícara (gourd bowl) is taken and painted red and white. It is then tied with a cord at the back of the house so that it is not visible to people. Cascarilla powder is used, and one must contribute fifty pesos or more; otherwise the person will be left poor.
- According to this Ifá, six adie dun dun are offered to Orunmila. Two spirits of Eggun are named: Eguleleko and Yeko Shisi Guegue.
- This Ifá represents the forming of groups of men into societies or communities in order to survive.
- In this Ifá one works for someone who does not deserve it. It is advised to move away from everything harmful. It indicates delay and destruction caused by an Eggun that has affected the person. Euré is offered to Oyá and an awan is performed. The euré is then opened and filled with the awan of the cleansing, sewn shut and left in a marketplace. On the third day, itá is done with Oyá’s dilogun.
- Here are born the works done with isheri (nails), which is why this Ifá is prayed every time one of those works is made. The awo of this Ifá must feed his head once a year, directly with his Ifá, 16 eyele fun fun, after performing ebo with them.
- This Ifá determines that each person will live according to their natural ability and must be content with their lot, without envying others. There are humble labourers who live like kings, and there are those who, having everything, lack everything because they have not found the spiritual peace that is the greatest wealth after health.
- In this place, the man and the woman lived without being in love, without illusions. But a lightning bolt fell and the woman began to menstruate, which disillusioned the man because procreation arose. The woman was able to bear children and the man fell in love with her, but she did not fall in love with him. The woman is drawn to another man and the man to another woman. The woman has been widowed twice and now has another husband. There are elder relatives who are ill and others who have died. It is necessary to hold fast to the eggun and to Yemayá.
- The person is «scratched» in Palo or must be «scratched» in the cazuela. This indicates betrayal in the house. A bellows is placed for Elegbá, and kururu or kalalu is given to Shangó to prevent betrayal.
- Kururu or kalalu: a broth made with yam, plantain, shrimp and beef. Osa Di says: «Do not be so stubborn, and use your head».
Born in this sign
- The war between the fishhooks and the fish.
- The gathering of men into societies or towns is born.
- The works that are made with isheri (nails).
What this sign indicates
- Avoid being stubborn and keep your composure.
- Beware of a friend who holds bad intentions towards you.
- Despite the favours you have done, you could face a family tragedy. Listen to advice and reflect on your actions.
- Your infatuation is stirring jealousy in another woman.
- That friend or relative wants to ruin you. Keep away from them, since they also avoid you at times. Always move about on your own.
- You are entering a hidden place to take something that does not belong to you. Be careful: they could catch you inside the house.
- You need to look after your own mind.
- You want to have a son, and that is causing conflict with your partner. Consider performing certain rituals if you wish to achieve it.
- You have done, or are about to do, a job in which, if you miss a single day, you will be replaced by someone more capable and cheaper.
- You used to travel often by ship and now you find it difficult. Your friends have conspired to keep you from embarking. Take care not to become a slave and appear mad in the future.
- Your work does not look well because of a curse someone has cast.
- You had a dream some days ago; give thanks to Obatalá and Oshún.
- You have a friend who owes you money and who likes to drink.
- You are a person who speaks frankly.
- A prosperous future or a swift promotion awaits you. Good news connected with the sea will also reach you.
- You long for peace of mind.
- You want to separate from your partner, but you have not done so because of your friends.
- If your partner leaves you, do not go back to her. Instead, another woman will appear in your life and you will have a child with her.
- You turn to the saints to settle your obligations. Orunmila warns you not to say more than is necessary, since it will harm you.
- You must receive Eleguá to calm the upheaval there is in your home.
- In any case, you will have another woman, since the one you have is not the right one. The one who truly belongs to you is far away, and you have been pursuing her for some time.
Advice and warnings
The traditional reading of this sign also warns about the following:
- You experience trouble in a leg or an arm. You may suffer stomach or head complaints.
Proverbs
- Tanto va el cántaro a la fuente hasta que se rompe. The pitcher goes to the fountain so often that in the end it breaks: repeat a risk long enough and it will catch up with you.
- El que cría perro ajeno, pierde el pan y pierde el perro. Whoever raises another man’s dog loses both the bread and the dog: care given to what is not yours returns nothing.
- Dos narizones no se pueden besar. Two big-nosed people cannot kiss: two people of the same hardness cannot come together.
- El huevo que el perro no puede tragar, la gallina lo puede picar. The egg the dog cannot swallow, the hen can peck: what one cannot manage by force, another undoes with patience.
- Tigre que come hueso, satisfacción para su garganta. The tiger that eats bone answers for its own throat: whoever takes on what is beyond them bears the consequence.
- En asunto de familia no se puede promediar. In family matters no one can mediate: an outsider has no place between relatives.
Patakíes
The maiden’s curse
There was a time when women, before marrying, had to go to the river for seven days in a row to draw water. There was a young woman who used to say to her friend: «If I have to go to the river for seven days before marrying, I would rather the sea swallow me». Shortly afterwards this young woman became engaged, and when the wedding drew near she repeated the same words again.
Even so, since it was an ancestral custom in that land, she had to go to the river to draw water. When she reached the river and put the pitcher into the water, it slipped from her hands, and as she tried to pick it up she slipped and fell in. The current dragged her out to the sea, where a whirlpool swallowed her.
Do not criticise the customs of your elders, so that you do not lose.
The theft of the king’s omo
The queen gave birth and her son was stolen from her; in time he became an awo of Orunmila and won great fame for his wisdom. One day this young awo arrived in a distant land, and the king summoned him to give him a reading. He told him: «What you have lost will appear». The king, annoyed, replied: «The only thing I have lost is my son, who was taken by my enemies when he was newborn. He had two moles with hairs on his body».
On hearing these words from the king, the awo took off his shirt, and seeing it the king came close and embraced him tightly, for he was his own son. So began a new life for that awo who had gone through so many hardships in his childhood.
The story of the disobedient bellows
Ogún was worn out blowing air into the forge to revive the fire; at that moment the bellows presented itself and helped him revive it with no difficulty at all. Ogún then concluded that the bellows would be very useful to him, and he tied it to the forge, enslaving it. And the bellows was left enslaved for being disobedient, and then it remembered Orunmila’s words, when he saw it and told it to make ebó so that it would not be anyone’s slave.
It speaks of shishiriku, dark eggunes that drive marriage away from the person.
The king who hid his true self
Ebbo: Jío jío meta, aikordie, ade, mascará, malaguidi meyi, una cadena, tierra de la casa, demás ingredientes, opolopo owo.
On this path there was a town that had a king who had just inherited the throne, and who still preferred ordinary life to life in the palace. He believed that, with the responsibility he now carried, he could no longer go on living the easy, adventure-filled life he had led before, so he resigned himself to a quiet, palatial existence.
One fine day he felt the urge to leave the palace, but not as a king: as an ordinary man. So he took off his robes, dressed in plain everyday clothes and went out of the palace that night, noticing that nobody recognised him. From then on, whenever the chance arose, he went out to roam the world.
One day he learned that the town was celebrating the carnival, and he went out in disguise, putting a mask over his face. There he met a beautiful woman, and she demanded to see his face. He took off the mask, and from that moment they began a romance that lasted a good while.
That woman became pregnant and said to the king: «I have dreamt that you were a king and that you had a wife and children». On hearing this, the king fled from her side, never to see her again.
Time passed, and this woman and her son, now a grown man, went to the town seeking a better life. When they arrived there was a celebration in honour of the king, and it happened that the sovereign came out onto the balcony to greet his people, and the woman saw that face: the man she had loved, the father of her son.
When the shock had passed, she went into the palace and straight to the king, who, on seeing her, said: «Say nothing, you are entirely right. I know we have a son, and he shall lack for nothing. I always loved you, but greater forces made me leave you; I want you to give me our son so I can make a good man of him, and you may stay in the palace». «Now I want to tell you something», the woman replied, «all I want is for you not to forget the words you have just said to me».
This Ifá speaks of a person who hides their true identity. Their personality keeps them from finding happiness in their marital relationships. They feel bound by a moral obligation. If it is a woman, she may be in a relationship with an older man whom she is ashamed to leave. As a result, she seeks to satisfy her desires by slipping away whenever she has the chance, looking to gratify her sexual longings. Yet on returning home she faces once more the sad reality of her situation. If it is a man, he is married but feels no deep love for his wife, who may be cold or indifferent, which affects intimacy and sexual pleasure. He therefore seeks another woman outside his home, hoping to find the true love of his life.
Cobbler, to your shoes
Prayer: Adifafun Oba Akuakuofun Awo Iña Gbogbo Inkan Araye Gbogbo Omo Odara Ashe Oni Gbogbo Asho Lodafun Olofin Kaferfun Olofin.
Ebbo: Eyele meyi, un güiro, saraeko, 16 itana, inso, leri, opolopo owo.
It once happened that there was a town whose king was envied by all his subjects. When the king went out riding through his lands, the cobbler, the painter, the bricklayer and the shopkeeper would say: «How well the king lives! We should like to be like him». They were not content with what life had given each of them. So they gathered together and went to the palace of the king, who was also the awo of that town. They told him what they thought and what they wished for, and the awo answered: «Very well, let us go before Olofin to see what he says about it».
They all made their way into Olofin’s presence, and when they arrived Olofin asked them: «What is it that you want?». They answered as one: «We wish to live as the king lives». «Very well, you shall all be obases. To Iban Eshu», were Olofin’s words before he withdrew.
They returned to their homes and went to bed. At dawn each of them had a palace, and they were all kings in the town.
A problem arose, however: there was no cobbler to mend and clean the shoes, no bricklayer to build and repair the houses, and so on. Life came to a standstill because everyone was a king, and a moment came when they could not solve their problems. Faced with this, each one asked to go back to being what he was before, so that life could work properly again. They realised that they were all equal, and that each one had a part to play and a specific place to occupy.
NOTE: When this Ifá comes up, a leri (head) of etu and eyele is taken and ground with oñi and crab earth. After making a paste with these ingredients, a jícara is taken and painted crimson and white. It is then tied behind the door of the house with a cord so that people do not see it. A powder is also made with cascarilla. Whoever performs this ritual must put down fifty pesos; otherwise he will be left in poverty.
Works and ebbó of Osa Di
Works and rituals of osa di
- Work
- Obori eleda is done with 16 eyele fun fun from Obatalá’s leri. Iye is made from the 16 leri of eyele, from the leri of etu, from pumpkin seeds, ilekan and oñí, and it is poured into a jícara painted white and yellow. It is tied with twine, a juju of aikordie is fixed to it, and it is placed behind the back door where no one can see it. Efun is sprinkled over it. Fifty pesos are charged so that the awo is not left poor. This is to prevent the abuses of friends.
Every day, while preparing this work, the awo prays: «ishe Oshe Ni Oshe Kolomo Tobata Ishe Wole Iba Efi Muni Adifafun Baba Bokun Boroki Akuko, Eyele Lebo».
- Work for the awo to make use of a client’s obsessing eggun
- When an awo wishes to obtain the destructive power of an eggun that is going to be taken away from a person before performing the oparaldo, he goes to the foot of a Cuban platanillo bush. There he gives it obi omi tutu, asking: «Obsessing eggun of so-and-so, do you want to stay with me for whatever I may command you?». If the coconut says yes, jío jío is given to it. He then takes the person to the foot of that bush and performs the oparaldo there.
On the third day the awo returns there and cuts a piece of wood from that bush, writes on it the name and surnames of the obsessing eggun and the oddun Oyekun Meyi, Osa Di and Otura Niko, prays over it, blows otí on it and sets it to eat with the ibo eggun. Afterwards, whenever he needs to drive that eggun, he scrapes a little of the wood for the iye, and it works just like the kirumba.
When this Ifá is seen, it speaks of the godfather, who may lose his good fortune.
Oggún is reinforced with one of the following pieces (whichever Ifá indicates): bellows, 7 nails, scythe, small iron board, plough, machete. This is to recover health.
The leri is to be prayed over with two eyele fun fun; afterwards the feathers are laid over the blood, the cotton is placed over the feathers and, last of all, the white cloth.
- Ebbo
- Akuko, abeboardie meyi, eyele meyi, oguo la meni, tontu ano.
- Ebbo to avoid the abuses of one’s friends
- Aikordie, llaraco, oguo la meta contu eta.
- Ebbo
- Un fuelle, soga, un palo, una chiva, eku, eya, epo. Derecho.
- Ebbo so that they do not catch him inside the house
- Pray over the head with 16 doves.
Prayers and suyeres of Osa Di
Liturgical material transcribed from the manuscripts of the source; it is kept literal.
Prayer
Osa Di Ifá Osun, Yemayá Orun Gun Safuye Eyenshe Efan Osa Fuya Ayoyaran Abosa Afuya Ayori Safumi Insafuo. Maferefun Orunmila, Obatalá, Shangó Ati Eshu.
Orishas in this sign
The orishas that the letter itself links to this sign, according to what the source records:
Other important aspects of the sign
Ewé of the sign
Male fern, marjoram.
Osa Di Ishe Isheri Oshe Koloma Tabati Ishe Wele Iba Lafi Munu Adifafun Baba Bokun Banti Poroki Akuko Eyele Lebo.