Iroso Rete

Awó Mayerifa lived in a territory under the command of Awó Aguatara Ifá, who had handed him all the power so that he would solve the problems of the place. However, the troubles grew every day and Awó Mayerifa fixed nothing, although he had promised to do so.

From the beginning, Awó Aguatara Ifá had warned him that, when he fed Ifá, he must also feed Eshu as well as the four corners. Awó Mayerifa did not know how to do it, did nothing and lived very sad.

One day he saw that everything kept getting worse and that the roads stayed closed, because he had not followed the rules. So he stored his Ifá inside two gourds, tied them to his waist and threw himself into the river. The people of the town wept, sang and prayed when they saw this, calling on Awó Aguatara Ifá and ringing the bell.

Awó Aguatara Ifá, who was with his Apetebí, heard the noise and ran to see what was happening. The people explained to him the act of Awó Mayerifa. He took two hens, offered them to the river and sang a chant. At once he sacrificed them and poured their blood into the water. The Apetebí was given the task of cooking the hens and bringing them to him. They summoned the entire population, which knelt, prayed and presented the food inside the river. Awó Aguatara Ifá began to give each person some of the food to taste while he prayed.

At that moment the first ikin rose from the river. Awó Aguatara Ifá fed it and went on with his prayers. The others came out one after another, each ikin with its own food and its own prayer. In the end he held the sixteenth ikin between his fingers.

In this way, total prosperity reached Iroso Unkuemi and the lands of Awó Aguatara Ifá.

This Ifá came out for Okpini when he was going to consult Olofin. He was told to always keep many small yams at home and, each day before beginning to divine, to roast one for Eshu. He did this for six days and was left with a single yam.

At dawn on the seventh day, Olofin sent him an urgent message: he had to go to the palace without delay. Okpini left without roasting the yam that remained and promised to roast it when he returned. Once before Olofin, the king asked him to find out why his subjects had gone so long without paying him homage. When he finished divining, Okpini warned him that he had to make ebbó, because that day his hunters would report to him that they had killed an elephant, a buffalo, a deer and a boa. Olofin immediately made his ebbó with a slug, a pigeon, a rooster and a hen. Okpini also made his own and went back home.

In the meantime, Eshu went and stood next to the great gate of the town and advised all the hunters who were heading to the palace not to go in. He told them that there were awós making ebbó for Olofin and that Olofin had ordered that any hunter who reported a kill that day would serve as an offering. Because of this, those who were bringing game or coming to report what they had killed in the wild stayed at the gate, fearing for their lives. The people slept there, and Eshu went to sleep at his house.

In the morning, Olofin sent for Okpini to reproach him that what he had announced had not come true. It was then that Okpini offered Eshu the roasted yam he owed him, a full day late. A little while after making this offering the messenger arrived and Okpini went to the palace, where the king scolded him for the failure of his predictions. He felt humiliated: Olofin had treated him as a liar and a fraud.

Okpini felt so low that he went to the Oshún river to throw his Ifá away there and afterward go back to his house. Meanwhile, Eshu had already eaten the roasted yams that Okpini gave him each day; he went back to the hunters waiting at the entrance and announced to them that the danger had passed. He told them that the awós had already finished the sacrifices and that they could present themselves at the palace without fear. The hunters all went in at the same time to report on their hunt. When Olofin wanted to know why they came together, they answered that the terrible warning of the day before had frightened them and that, for fear of being sacrificed, they had had to spend the night at the entrance.

Olofin then understood that Okpini had been right and sent for him again. Okpini had barely returned from the river when the messenger arrived. At the palace, Olofin received him in a friendly tone and with a greeting of reconciliation. He asked his pardon for the way he had treated him the day before and asked whether he still had any ebbó to make. Okpini answered that he owed Eshu a roasted yam, but that he had already settled it.

Olofin explained to him that his predictions had come true, although a day later. As compensation for his humiliation he gave him a brush decorated with beads, the urukere, and a she goat. Okpini took the gifts and went home. Later he went back to the Oshún river and recovered fifteen ikines; he spent a long time looking for the last one, which he did not find because a fish had swallowed it. He then took a stone from the river as the sixteenth seed and, with the goat Olofin had given him, served his Ifá. In this way the odu received the name Irosun Okpini.

Ariku lived in poverty when he was told to receive his own Ifá. To pay for the ceremony he borrowed money, and they announced that his luck would begin to improve after three years. The creditors soon demanded payment. Three months before the deadline, he already felt frustrated, and his awó recommended patience. But with fifteen days left before the third anniversary, his patience ran out completely: he gathered his Ifá, put it in a bundle and set out to get rid of it.

From Heaven, his guardian angel asked God for authorization, took the form of a bird and flew after him. It caught up with him on the road and began to beat him with its wings all over his body, singing that he should not throw away his Ifá, because the wealth, the wife, the children and all the fortune that went with him were coming behind him. Encouraged, Ariku went back home with his Ifá.

On the fifteenth day people came to consult, and everything Ariku told them came true. The daughter of Ajé, wealth, guided a group to him and presented herself as his wife. In three months Ariku was a very rich man, and before the next anniversary he had built his house and had a son.

For this reason it is said that prosperity arrives on its date, and that whoever throws away his Ifá fifteen days before receiving what was promised loses everything.