Eyiogbe

At the beginning, the divinities of Heaven did not have the head they have today, because the head, Ori, was a divinity in her own right. Orunmila wanted to have a complete body and consulted the awo Amure, who lived in Heaven. Amure told him to raise both palms and ask for a head, and to make an ebbó with four kola nuts, an earthen vessel, a sponge and soap. He also told him to keep the nuts whole in his sacred place, because an unexpected visitor would come later to split them.

Ori also consulted Amure. She was told to serve her guardian angel with four kola nuts, which she could not afford, although she was warned that she would only begin to prosper once she did so.

Orunmila made his ebbó and left the four nuts in the sacred place of Ifá, as he had been told. Soon after, Eshu announced in Heaven that Orunmila had four beautiful kola nuts and was looking for a divinity to split them. The divinities went to his house one after another, led by Ogún. Orunmila told each of them that they were not strong enough, and they left feeling hurt. Even Obatalá visited him, but Orunmila gave him other, different and better nuts, and explained that the nuts in question were not meant for him. Obatalá, who never loses his calm, accepted them and went away.

Finally, Ori decided to go. She was the only divinity who had not tried, and she could not even afford the nuts for her own ebbó. She went rolling to Orunmila's house. As soon as he saw her coming, Orunmila went out to meet her and carried her inside. He filled the earthen bowl with water and washed her with the sponge and the soap. After drying her, he took her to his sacred place and asked her to split the nuts, which had been kept for her for a long time.

Ori thanked him for the gesture and prayed with the nuts for Orunmila, that everything he did would be fulfilled and come true. Then she prayed for herself, to have a permanent home and many followers. Then she rolled backward, threw herself against the nuts and split them with an explosion that was heard throughout Heaven.

The other divinities understood at once that the nuts had been split, and they were curious to know who had managed it when even Obatalá could not. When Eshu announced that it was Ori, they all agreed that the head was the right one.

Soon afterward, the hands, the feet, the body, the stomach, the chest, the neck and the other parts, each of which had until then had its own identity, gathered and decided to go and live with the head, since they had not understood before how important it was. Together they lifted her up and, in Orunmila's sacred place, they crowned her king of the body. Because of the part Orunmila played in her fortune, the head touches the ground as a sign of respect toward him to this day. This is also why Orunmila, although he was the youngest of the divinities, is the most important and the most popular.

Eyiogbe is the patron divinity of the head, because he was the one who made in Heaven the ebbó that made her king of the body. On Earth he became the most important odu of Orunmila, although at first he was among the youngest. He belongs to the second generation of prophets who offered to come to this world to improve it by their example, and he was a very charitable apostle of Orunmila, both in Heaven and on Earth.

Obatalá longed to be a father on Earth; Afin, his wife, longed for it a good deal less. Up in Heaven, a spirit named Omonighorogbo begged Olodumare to let him be born between the two, to show the world the meaning of kindness. By custom, palm wine was forbidden to Obatalá; to Afin, salt. Afin’s pregnancy did not soften the mood in the house: the more months passed, the more quarrelsome she became.

The nine months were completed and a boy was born. Soon afterward, Obatalá noticed that the pantry was empty and that the mother needed to eat. He ran to the field for yams, okra and vegetables, and he was delayed. Afin, furious, began to reproach him for leaving her without food on the very day of the birth; to her, that proved he did not love her. She then thought the best thing was to put an end to the marriage and to his life. Since she knew palm wine could kill him, she poured it into the pot where the drinking water was kept. Then she laid the child down and went to chat with the neighbors.

Obatalá came back from the field and began to cook for his wife. With the yam on the fire, he went into the bedroom to draw water from the pot with his usual cup, a snail shell. He was about to drink when the child, from the bed, said to him: “Father, leave that water alone: my mother mixed it with palm wine.” It surprised him that a baby only one day old could speak, but he obeyed.

Once the meal was ready, he wanted to pay his wife back: he put salt in the soup, which was exactly what harmed her. He set the dish aside and went off with his friends to play ayó. Afin came home and went up to the food. As she was about to taste it, the child spoke again: “Mother, do not taste that dish; my father seasoned it with salt.”

Afin became extremely upset. She went out crying for help: she told the neighbors that her husband meant to take her life because she had given him a son. Her cries drew curious people from all the surrounding houses. The divinities were summoned to Obatalá’s house. He learned of it while playing and stayed calm, even when his wife grabbed him and pulled at him.

This time the trial was led by Ogún, since the one who usually presided, Obatalá, was in the place of the accused. Ogún asked Afin to explain what had happened. She said her husband had put salt in her food, knowing she could not eat it. When they asked how she knew there was salt and that he was responsible, she said her son, born only a day before, had told her. The divinities thought she had lost her mind: no one could conceive that such a small baby would speak to his mother.

Then it was Obatalá’s turn to defend himself. To everyone’s surprise, he admitted that he had put in the salt. He explained that it was a punishment for something similar she had done first that day: pouring palm wine into his water, even though everyone, she included, knew it was forbidden to him. Asked how he found out, he said it was the newborn who had warned him not to drink.

All eyes turned to the child, whom they already saw as an enigmatic being. Without being asked anything, he completed the mystery with these words: “Eji Mogbe.” With them he meant that his coming into this world had a purpose: to rescue both his parents from death. For that reason he had warned them, so that they would not destroy each other. A week later, when they gave him a name, his parents called him Eyiogbe, “double salvation.”

Because of that first work of Eyiogbe in this world, when the odu comes out during initiation in the Igbodu, all the sacrifice material is doubled. Also, palm wine and salt are always added to it, in memory of what happened on the day he was born.

Eyiogbe was fifteen when he went with his mother to Oja Ajigbomekon, the big market where beings of Heaven and of Earth alike did business. Already on the road he ran into a woman and, without giving her time to speak, told her that she carried a pregnancy of three years that could not grow. He ordered her to perform a sacrifice, and when she did it, he guaranteed her that her difficulty was over.

Further on he saw a crippled man named Aro, who claimed that nothing was wrong with him. Eyiogbe aimed his divining staff at the man's legs: Aro stood up and took his first steps. Then he came across a blind man who likewise denied having any ailment. Eyiogbe aimed the staff at his eyes and gave him back his sight.

He asked payment from neither of them. He advised them to stay close to Orunmila and never to hide what afflicted them, because whoever keeps his ailments ends up buried with them and will not be able to notice when Olodumare answers his pleas.