Irete Meyi

Eyi Elemere needed a whole deer for the sacrifice that would give him a son. In the town of Ujo he read for Kporoye, a woman with no children, and made her ebbó; then, in the forest, he called a great deer with his mirror, and in the struggle both fell into a deep hole. The children, the men and the women who passed by mocked him — «the doctor who saves others cannot save himself?» — and walked on. Only Kporoye, who was coming to leave her sacrifice next to the hole, held out her turban, which he charmed to make longer, and pulled him out with the deer. As she fell backwards she was left uncovered, and from that meeting — on a bed of ikín leaves, because it is forbidden to make love on the bare earth — Eyi Elemere told her a son would be born. He described his house in Oke Mesi and they went their separate ways.

Kporoye had Olomo, who grew up singing the songs of a father he did not know. When she finally took him to look for him, three bandits caught them and sold them as slaves separately. And the wife of Eyi Elemere, looking for a slave for the human sacrifice at her husband's yearly Ifá festival, bought — without knowing it — Olomo.

While cracking palm seeds, the boy sang his whole story: the hole, the turban, the deer, the house with the tree that gave coral. Eyi Elemere listened in hiding, and tested him with fire — which did not burn him — and with boiling water, which turned ice cold. He held him as his true son. On the day of the festival, Eshú blunted the executioner's knife, which could not cut the victim's neck; the priests recognized the son, and Eyi Elemere declared: from that day on, Orunmila would never accept a human being in sacrifice. Afterwards he rescued Kporoye — masked in palm leaves he danced her out of her father's palace — and with her and his children he lived in prosperity forever.

When Oloddumare finished his work of creation, he made the tree of prosperity — the ikín tree, the tree of riches — and named the boa, the father ram and the rooster as its guards. The two hundred deities tried in vain to get prosperity out of the tree: they all failed, because they did not bother to find out the secret of harvesting its fruit.

Before trying, Orunmila went to his diviners — «the person who takes water out of the river destroys the home of the fish; only a patient man can succeed» — and they told him first to take down his house in heaven over the shrine of Eshú (that is why, when this sign comes out, someone who is building a house is told to stop the building for a while). Then he was to sacrifice plenty of corn, pieces of yam and jutías, with a goat and a ladder to Eshú, and to carry the materials in a bag to the foot of the tree.

When he got there, the boa attacked him first: he threw her a jutía, which she swallowed at once. The rooster shook his wings to crow: he threw him corn, and he started eating. The ram dug in to charge: he threw him the pieces of yam. And with his bag at his side, Orunmila climbed the ladder set up by Eshú and pulled off all the fruit at the top. When the rooster finished his corn and saw him up there, he crowed: «Orunmila gegoo!» — which is the rooster's crow to this day: «Orunmila was the first to climb the tree of wealth».

Eyi Elemere became one of the four royal diviners of Oyó — the other three lived in heaven and came to the palace every five days. The king, bothered by his skill and his prosperity, plotted to destroy him: he had a hole dug in the palace leading to a bottomless drop, covered it with a mat, and invited him to sit on it. Eyi Elemere fell at once — and found himself in heaven.

Walking with no direction, he met his fellow diviners from heaven, who treated him to a goat and persuaded him to spend the night. The next morning they gave him another goat and showed him the shortest route back to earth: at once he was home, where he celebrated with his followers.

Three days later it was time for the palace visit, and he refused to go. The three diviners from heaven asked about him; the Olofen lied: «he has run away from the land». They insisted on sending for him, and when he finally appeared and took his place, everyone learned how the Olofen had treated him four days before. The king could not defend himself and was fined on the spot with four goats and four barrels of wine. And the diviners, as they stood up, sang: «we came to read for the Olofen and he rewarded us with ingratitude — remember that one good act of kindness deserves another, while a bad one destroys the relationship».