Iroso Juani

Before coming to Earth, Iroso Ojuani consulted a awó, Akira Ijo Mu Ro Gbam Gbam, who told him to make a sacrifice because of the difficulties awaiting him here. He had to honor his guardian angel with a male ram for a banquet, and offer Eshu a goat, a sack of money and a basket of kola nuts. Iroso complied. Even so, before leaving he promised his angel that, if he succeeded on Earth as a priest of Ifá, he would return quickly to Heaven; and that, if he failed, he would take a long time to come back.

On reaching the city of Ularin, he devoted himself there to trade and to Ifá. A little later he moved to another city, where his business prospered. When he was no longer in Ularin, an epidemic broke out there that caused tumors in the throat, called oligbegbe. Priests and physicians came from all around, without any result. Someone then remembered that Iroso practiced Ifá well, and they sent for him. He consulted Ifá, who ordered him to go back to Ularin to help the people.

Once in Ularin he performed the divination and ordered a she goat and a hen to be sacrificed for Ifá, and a male goat for Eshu. He went into the forest and prepared the medicine. All the inhabitants drank it. At dawn the next day nobody was sick anymore.

Before going home, he asked them to drink one last sip of medicine with kola, but they answered that it was not needed, because they felt healthy.

When he reached his new home, Eshu asked him about the obitayin, ogoro tayin, the last part of the sacrifice, with medicine and kola. Iroso told him that the inhabitants of Ularin had not accepted it. Right away Eshu announced that the sacrifice of Ularin was not valid, and before the following day the throat illness returned to the city. The diviners of Ularin consulted and learned that the sacrifice had been rejected because it was left incomplete; the only way out was for the priest to come back and finish it. The messenger carried the invitation to Iroso’s house, but he refused harshly: in Ularin they had not heeded his last order to drink the medicine again and to receive the kola nuts.

After much urging, he set conditions: this time they would pay him a sack of money for every step between his house and Ularin. They agreed, and so he gathered a large sum.

Back in the city, he asked for the same things he had used in the first sacrifice, made the medicine and everyone drank it. Again, before the next day, the illness was completely gone. Then he asked for the wine and the kola nuts of the final ceremony and they were brought to him without delay; he performed the final rite and took his leave. When he got back home, Eshu confirmed that the sacrifice had indeed been accepted.

With the fame he won in Ularin, Iroso decided to devote himself completely to Ifá, because no business gave him as much as the work of a priest. At that time Elenini, the divinity of obstacles (called Idoboo in Benin), appeared before Iroso’s guardian angel to complain about how effective he was as a priest of Ifá on Earth. The angel assured her that, since his protégé had promised to return soon to Heaven if he triumphed in Ifá, he was about to return.

Meanwhile Iroso gained fame and wealth. Elenini looked for a way to hasten his return to Heaven. For this she created a conflict in a town near Iroso’s, where the inhabitants attacked and killed one another, sure that they would call him. So it happened: the obá, the king of the town, invited him. Iroso divined and ordered a sacrifice with 201 snails or slugs, 201 pieces of white cloth, 201 packages of eko, 201 bags of salt, 201 gourds of palm wine, 201 of palm oil and 201 bags of money. He carried out the sacrifice and prepared a medicine to be sprinkled over the whole town. Peace returned before another day dawned.

Some time later, the people served him a meal, but Elenini poisoned it. As soon as he tasted it, a tumor formed in his throat. Because of the pain he could not finish his work in that town and hurried back home. There he gathered his awoses, who told him that it was time to return to Heaven, as had been arranged from the beginning. They also told him that, to lengthen his life on Earth, he could make a sacrifice with a package of salt, a gourd of palm oil and a male ram. Iroso obtained everything. While he was praying with the ram in his hands, the animal leaped and pierced his throat with its horn. The pus gushed out and Iroso lost consciousness. While in a coma, he suddenly found himself in Heaven, in front of his guardian angel.

The angel asked him to bring another ram for Elenini. Iroso replied that he already had one tied up on Earth to sacrifice. Then the angel ordered him to go back to Earth and finish the sacrifice. At that moment he woke up, and the ram was sacrificed without waiting any longer.

As soon as he recovered, he gave up the practice of Ifá and went back to trade and to farming. Thanks to this he lived to old age.

For this reason, whoever gets this Ifá in the Igbodu is advised never to practice medicine or the priesthood of Ifá if he wants a long life.

Alabueli helped Shangó and studied with him how to command fire and light. Once he traveled to see a son in law and a brother in law of his in the town of Lese Oyó Inle, and there he burned 200 houses. Fear spread, and since Alabueli was Shangó's student, the people declared that they would not place their children under his teaching, because he wrecked and burned everything.

Shangó, also called Oba Leyé, went to Orunmila. Orunmila interpreted his Ifá and prepared an ebbó for him. Then Shangó set out for Ejiogbe, Mokun Inle, a place beyond Ife, where some disciples of his lived. They offered him a great banquet. Oba Leyé carried in his bag (apo) 200 offerings, plenty of epó and ashé de enu. Once the meal was over, he planted himself by the door and announced that he had to leave: he was going to collect the boys whom the families would entrust to him to be taught, and from there he would go on to Lese Oyó. However, when he reached the homes of those families, none of them gave him their children, because they had seen 200 houses burn and they rejected Shangó because of what his disciple Alabueli had done.

Shangó returned to Orunmila and performed the ebbó with two roosters, two guinea fowl, a ram and a good amount of money; and, following the advice, he gave a banquet with every kind of food. Nobody wanted to attend, because their intention was to kill him. But Shangó began to chant songs and dance. Suddenly he stamped the ground with his foot and fire burst from his mouth. Everything lit up as if it were midday, and those present, paralyzed with terror, proclaimed him Obá of Lese Oyó. From then on that light lit up the town.

This is how, according to the story, the electric light bulb came to be.

Ogún and Shangó approached the same woman without either knowing about the other. When it came out, they began to fight and went to ask Orunmila to settle the matter. Orunmila told them that, before this, the three of them, she included, had not made the sacrifice they owed.

Then Eshu stepped in and proposed to share the woman into two equal parts. Ogún chose one part and covered it with earth on the ground. When asked what he had covered, he said it was Ijarenyin, his wife. Shangó kept the other part and began to draw water from it, and he called that water Oyá.

If this odu comes out for a man, the warning is that he should not take an interest in the woman or the lover of another man. If it comes out for an older unmarried woman, her parents must make a sacrifice to prevent her husband, in the future, from wounding her with a machete for being unfaithful. That sacrifice takes a goat and its headdress.