Iroso Ojuani

Before coming down to Earth, Iroso Ojuani honored his Guardian Angel with a ram and Eshú with a goat, a sack of money and a basket of kolá, and promised to return to Heaven soon if he succeeded as a priest. In the city of Ularin he took up trade and Ifá, and after he left, an epidemic of throat tumors broke out there that no doctor could settle. They called him back; he prescribed a she-goat and a hen for Ifá and a goat for Eshú, prepared the medicine with leaves, the she-goat's blood and the iyerosun of his Ifá, and everyone was healed before morning. But when he asked them to take the last sip with kolá, they answered that they were cured already. On reaching home, Eshú asked about that final ceremony and declared the sacrifice unaccepted: the illness came back the next day.

They begged him to come back; he demanded a sack of money for every step from his house to Ularin, and they paid it. He repeated the sacrifice, everyone drank — this time through to the final ritual — and the plague was gone. His success decided him to practice Ifá full time; but Elenini, the divinity of obstacles, claimed before his Guardian Angel the promise to return to Heaven. Elenini stirred up a conflict in a neighboring town; he settled it with the sacrifice of the 201, and Elenini poisoned his food: the tumor came up in his throat. His Awoses told him his hour had come, but that he could lengthen his life with a breeding ram; while he was praying, the ram leapt, drove its horn through his throat, the pus poured out and he woke from the coma. He was healed, gave up the practice of Ifá, went back to trade and farming, and lived to a great age. When this Ifá comes out at Igbodun, the person is advised not to practice medicine or Ifá, if they want to live a long time.

Shangó had a helper named Alabueli, who was learning from him how to master fire and light. One day, on a visit to the town of Lese Oyó Inle, Alabueli burned 200 houses, and everyone took fright at him; since he was Shangó's pupil, people said: «I am not giving my children to Shangó to teach, because he wrecks and burns everything».

Shangó, whose name was Oba Leyé, went to Orunmila, who saw this Ifá for him and made him ebbó with a ram, two guinea fowl, two roosters and the fee, and told him to hold a feast. Nobody wanted to come: what they wanted was to kill Shangó. But he began to sing and to dance, and when the people least expected it, he stamped on the ground and began breathing fire from his mouth, and the whole place caught light with a brightness like daylight. They were all struck dumb with fright and made him Obá of the land of Lese Oyó, and that light served to light the town. So the electric light was born.

Unknown to either of them, Ogún and Shangó were keeping company with the same woman. When the fight broke out between them, they called Orunmila to settle it, and he reminded them that all three of them — the woman included — had failed to sacrifice earlier.

Later Eshú stepped in and advised them to divide the woman into two equal halves. Ogún took his half and covered it with earth on the ground; asked what he had covered, he said it was Ijarenyin, his wife. For his part, Shangó took his and began drawing water from it, and he called that water Oya. When this Odù comes out for a man, he is warned not to take an interest in another man's wife or lover; when it comes out for an unmarried woman, her parents must sacrifice — a goat and her headdress — so that one day her husband does not take a machete to her over unfaithfulness.