Ika Yeku

Ayó was the land of two twins who loved each other very much: Oyekun Bika and Ika Yekun. The latter, the younger one, lived in poverty.

Once, Ika Yekun consulted the oracle and his own sign appeared, asking for an offering: three plantain stumps, a gourd bowl and other elements. He did not do it, since he was an Awó who was indifferent to almost everything. Some time later, disobeying a prohibition, he went to the river, undressed and went in to swim. Distracted, he did not notice the flood carrying logs and branches. One of them struck him on the head and left him senseless in the water.

Oyekun Bika had also consulted the oracle, with the same result: the same sign, the same offering and the order to take it to the river. When he arrived, he was stunned to see his twin lying there unconscious. He began to pray to Ifá. He performed oparaldo with the hens, poured the blood of their heads into the current and called on Ifá and on Yalorde. Then he surrounded the body with the three plantain stumps. The white dove went to the middle stump and the white guinea fowl to the ones at the sides. Above the fallen man's head he left the gourd bowl.

After a while, Ika Yekun regained his senses, sat up and began to speak, asking Ifá for forgiveness. However, a few days later Oyekun Bika died, while Ika Yekun became great and powerful.

Later on, Ika Yekun wanted to learn from Ifá the cause of that death. The answer was that his brother would have been saved if he had been consecrated and had received the osun that belonged to his sign.

The passage also contains two clarifications. One concerns the osun of this sign: it eats with egun, it is prayed to the 16 Meyi, to Ika Yekun and to Oyekun Bika, and it receives the same things that the egun of an Awó receives. Its load is an awó secret and is not written here. The other supposes that the blow to the head came from the logs that the current pushed with force, and hence the loss of consciousness. It adds that Oyekun Bika healed his twin without first settling his own pending matter, and that there was a change of head.

Orishaoko ruled the land of Inle Ogba Yekun, and in it lived an awó named Ogba Orilaye, to whom he had given great power by passing on his most important secrets. Thanks to this, Ogba Orilaye could call upon both Orishaoko and Shangó, and he did so with a song in the ritual language each time he held those ceremonies. Both always came with an answer, and always with the same warning: he must never consecrate his two sons in Ifá. That warning kept him uneasy.

Once he offered a meal to Orishaoko, Inle and Shangó. Shangó warned him: he should not think of tricking them, for he planned one thing and another would happen, since the ones who knew were they. The awó knelt and swore that he would always obey their orders. Shangó stayed silent, and Orishaoko watched and listened without speaking. Elegba appeared at that moment. Together with Shangó, he remarked to Orishaoko that the pit (joro joro) where the meal had been served would be used to bury Ogba Orilaye, since his own knowledge, piled up in his head, would lead him to ruin.

Soon afterward, the awó sent for Elegba. He handed him a chicken with what was needed for the ebbó and explained his plan for his sons. Elegba approved of the idea and wanted to know when he would travel to the land of Awana to consecrate them. On hearing that it would be at once, he offered to go with him.

The three of them went, with the two young men, to Awana Ifá, a place whose awó were all egun and which was under the command of Ogba Yekun. They were welcomed there. Ogba Orilaye set out to Ogba Yekun the purpose of the journey, and Ogba Yekun did osode. Ika Yekun came out, whose message was to think carefully about what was intended. Since Ogba Orilaye said nothing, Elegba answered for him: his wish was for his sons to be awó at any cost. Ogba Yekun said that was agreed, but that this decision would bring about his ruin. Ogba Orilaye replied that his great powers would settle everything, since in the whole world there was no one who knew more than he did.

With everything ready for the consecrations, Ogba Yekun told Elegba that other awó of that land had to be invited. Elegba made the invitations and brought them without telling them the truth. During the Ifá ceremony, Ika Yekun fell to one son and Oyekun Bika to the other. The invited awó were filled with fear, for they knew well what was approaching.

Seven days later it was the turn of the Oddun, and a song in the ritual language was sung twice. At that moment Ogba Orilaye died. Elegba went away along the road amid drumming and singing.

Meanwhile, Orishaoko and Shangó were waiting for the body beside the pit they had opened when the awó tried to trick them with his meal. They placed it there and repeated the meal. Then the two offered themselves two quail on their respective lerí.

Orunmila had to prepare an ebbó that required ceiba leaves, so he asked the orishas to bring them. The tree stood at the very top of a hill and none of them managed to climb it; they came back without the leaves. Orunmila announced that he would go himself.

First he consulted with osode, and this Ifá appeared. He made the ebbó with a rooster, ceiba leaves, a hoe, a handle and a machete, and set out for the hill. But in front of it the result was the same: the slopes were so steep that he could not climb. The orishas laughed and called him a boaster.

Orunmila then took the hoe and the machete and began cutting into the slope in a spiral, turn after turn, until steps were left that led him to the summit where the ceiba grew. He gathered the leaves, came down with them and performed another ebbó, this time with the hoe, the machete, fish, a hutia and a rooster, in order to prevail over his adversaries. The orishas ended up greeting him.