Ika Di

Shangó enjoyed a good life in his town, which he had earned after overcoming hard labors. Even so he wanted more power, and with that desire he visited Orunmila. Orunmila consulted the osode and this Ifá came out for him, with a message: Shangó was going to be king in another country. To achieve it he had to offer an ebbó with a small chair, an arrow, a trap, a chain and two roosters, and thus he would escape a trap that would be set for him. If they offered him a seat, he had to shake it out when the bottom was made of wood, and refuse it completely when it was upholstered, so as not to fall into the hands of his enemies. Besides, so as not to lose the announced fortune, he had to make rogaciones from time to time and avoid surrounding himself with many women.

Shangó carried out the ebbó and set out in search of that fortune.

Far from there, a king fell gravely ill. He noticed that all his ministers coveted the throne, and to prevent them from fighting one another and the people from paying the consequences, he called them and told them that his heir would come from another country and would wear a red cape. He also ordered an edict to be drafted with that last wish so that everyone would know it.

The king died a few days later. The ministers agreed to kill any foreigner who came to claim the crown. They opened the cover of the royal seat, fixed inside a thin poisoned arrowhead, pointing upward, and covered it again: whoever sat there would be wounded and die.

Shangó arrived in that country. The people recognized in him the announced heir and guided him to the palace. He was a shrewd man: from among the people he chose the strongest young men and ordered them to arm themselves with all the spears and arrows they could find, to form his personal escort.

The coronation ceremony gathered many visitors from the provinces and from neighboring countries. The ministers invited him to take the throne to begin, but Shangó asked to be crowned standing, and they did so. With the crown on, he approached the throne and, to the general bewilderment, passed it by and sat in the place reserved for the queen, in case the king had had a wife.

Then he summoned the ministers of the deceased king. He asked the nearest one to take the throne beside him, and the man excused himself: he did not consider himself worthy of such an honor. The second, the third and the rest answered the same. Shangó ordered his escort to seize them and kill them all. Then, before the guests, he had the cover of the seat opened and everyone saw the betrayal that had been prepared for him.

Shangó reigned for some years, but he set aside what Orunmila had advised him, went about surrounded by women and grew overconfident. In the palace there were still soldiers loyal to the executed ministers, who prepared another trap for him; he got tangled in it and was left without a throne.

Okan Lifa was a young babalawo who stood out for what he knew, knowledge gathered by following what his Oluo commanded.

In his land, Arakesa, learning cost him dearly: he was mistreated and humiliated a great deal. As soon as he began his training, the elders saw how fast his intelligence advanced and agreed to lower his worth: at every ceremony in which he took part, they would discard everything he taught.

Okan Lifa discovered the plan. One night he made an offering to his Ifá: two black hens. With earth and the remains of the offering he then set up an ebbó. Then he left for Inale, and there things went very well for him.

After sixteen days a great war broke out in Arakesa. They captured the king and killed him. Then they went after the Oluo of the palace, but the Oluos fled one after another, fearing the same fate.

They came to Inale, where Okan Lifa lived, to ask him for refuge and to tell him what they were leaving behind.

Then Okan Lifa decided to return to his land. As soon as he set foot in Arakesa, taken for the Oluo of the fallen government, the neighbors themselves testified that he had never served the king. The new government considered him a friend for having come back and proclaimed him king with full power.

In a certain land the people consumed fish, but beforehand they removed the head of each piece and threw it into the water.

In that sea swam a fish that longed to become king, and it turned to Orunmila for a consultation. The answer was that the ebbó had to be prepared with water from the opposite shore. The fish went to gather that water, from the coast that lay across from its own. It came back and made the ebbó. Then it settled on that shore. The fishermen there could not catch it, and it became king.