Iroso Ate

Awó Aguatara Ifá handed Awó Mayerifa the whole rule of his land, with a single warning: every time he fed Ifá, he was to feed Eshú and the four corners. But Awó Mayerifa did not know how to do anything and did nothing; the trouble went from bad to worse, and he spent his life miserable. One day, seeing every road closed, he took his Ifá, put it into two gourds, tied them at his waist and threw himself into the river.

The town began weeping, singing and ringing the bell. Awó Aguatara Ifá came running, presented two hens to the river and gave their blood to the water; he set the Apetebí to cook them, put the town on its knees, and began the song of Mari Ebó: he fed the head — and the first ikin came up out of the river; the hearts — and the second came up; the gizzards, the neck, the liver, the breast, the wings, the back, the eggs, the ball of yam, the eko, the oshinshín, the rice, the flour… and one by one the ikines rose until he held the sixteenth between his fingers. So the complete prosperity of the land of Awó Aguatara Ifá came about. Whatever happens to you in life, do not throw Ifá away: what despair throws into the river, only faith and ebbó bring back up.

Okpini was told to keep small yams at home and to roast one for Eshú before each divination. On the seventh day he had one left, and Olofin sent for him urgently: he set off promising to roast it on his return. At the palace he divined that that very day the hunters would report killing a boa, a deer, a buffalo and an elephant, and Olofin made sacrifice. But Eshú, collecting his yam, planted himself at the town gate and warned every hunter that whoever reported a kill that day would be used for the sacrifice: they all spent the night held at the entrance.

In the morning, Olofin called Okpini a liar and a fraud. Dishonored, Okpini went to the river Oshún and threw his Ifá in. Then at last he paid the roasted yam — and Eshú lifted the alarm: every hunter came into the palace at once with his kill. Olofin understood that the predictions had come true twenty-four hours late, apologized with the greeting «Urukere jenti jenti», and gave him a brush trimmed with beads and a she-goat. Okpini went back to the river to get his ikines: he found fifteen, and a fish had swallowed the last one; he took a stone from the river as the sixteenth seed and served his Ifá with Olofin's she-goat. That is how this Odù earned the name Irosun Okpini: the debt of a single yam holds up the word a whole day — and impatience nearly cost him his foundation.

Ariku was very poor when he was told to receive his own Ifá; he borrowed for the ceremony, and was promised that he would begin to prosper within three years. Those who had lent to him began pressing him; three months short of the date he was already worn down, and his Awó advised patience. Fifteen days short of the third anniversary, his patience ran out entirely: he gathered his Ifá, packed it up, and set out to throw it away.

In Heaven, his Guardian Angel asked God's leave, turned into a bird and flew after him. He found him on the road and began beating his body with his wings, singing: «Ariku, do not throw your Ifá away: the wealth that follows you is coming behind; the wife that follows you is coming behind; the children that follow you are coming behind; your whole fortune is coming behind». Steadied, Ariku went home with his Ifá. On the fifteenth day people came to his house for divination and every prediction of his came to pass; the daughter of Ajé — wealth — led a party to him and declared herself his wife. In three months he had grown very rich; before the next anniversary he had built a house and had a child. Prosperity has a date: whoever throws it away fifteen days short of collecting loses everything.