Iroso Sa

Shangó, Oshún, Ogún and Orunmila shared a house. Shangó’s wife was Oshún, although at the same time she lived with Ogún; she also had three other lovers in town.

Orunmila’s legs were crippled and he had trouble walking. One morning, when the day’s consultation began, this Ifá appeared for him and he had to make an ebbó. Oshún was the only one who cared and she obtained everything he needed. In the reading, Ifá announced a fire in the house.

Shangó found out that Oshún was betraying him. He waited for a moment when everyone inside the house was distracted and lit it on all four sides, to take revenge. Seeing the flames, everyone ran out. Oshún remembered that Orunmila could not walk and went back in to look for him. She did not find him and went out by the back door. There she came upon Orunmila, who had gotten out by himself thanks to the fright.

Oshún said to him: “I went back in to save you and I did not find you. That is why I came out this way, and I see that you saved yourself.” Orunmila answered: “I will always be grateful for what you did. Although they call you a sinner, you were the only one who thought of me. From now on your faults are forgiven, and from today you are the only one authorized to eat beside me.”

For this reason, when he invites her, Oshún eats beside him the goat, the hen and whatever else Orunmila eats.

Orunmila was visiting a house when, at daybreak, this Ifá came out and announced that there would be a fire there. He wanted to know what they owed in that house, and Ifá answered that only a ram for Shangó remained unpaid. Orunmila asked whether that was the origin of the fire, and the answer was yes: Shangó was already tired of waiting for his payment and was coming to collect it.

So Shangó set the house on fire and stood by the exit with his bow and arrow, ready to shoot anyone who tried to escape. Orunmila discovered him and at once covered his face with the mask of Obatalá. He came out of the house and asked Shangó to lower his weapons. Shangó, believing he had Obatalá before him, obeyed. Then he noticed the trick, recognized Orunmila and explained: “I acted this way because in this house they owe me a ram and refuse to give it to me.”

Orunmila replied that this was none of his business, since he was only there on a visit, but promised to demand that they settle the ram, so that things would return to their course. Shangó agreed. The people of the house handed over the ram, but they had already lost their dwelling and nearly lost their lives as well.

Among the saints, Obatalá is the only one able to calm another who has become angry over a debt.

Obatalá was sick, and his house was about to come down. He went to Orunmila, and the odu that came out was Iroso Sa, the one of the zunzún. The diviner prescribed an ebbó: a zunzún bird, three roosters, four sticks with four little dolls and a little house, together with eku, eyá, epó and sixteen pesos and eighty cents. He would have to look for the things in the forest, and there he must pay the tributes that the forest demands.

But Obatalá ignored the warning. He entered the forest and, after walking for a long while, came upon Elegba, to whom he explained Orunmila's instructions so that he would help with the ebbó. Together they went on until they found Ogún, and Obatalá told the same story again and asked for help. At that moment the sky grew dark, thunder rolled and Shangó arrived. To him too he repeated his story, and the four of them kept walking.

Deep in the forest Osain appeared before them and demanded: “With whose permission are you in my house?” None of them answered. They continued on their way without giving him any importance, crushing plants and cutting down trees.

Back at his house, with the materials for the ebbó and with the companions who had followed him, Obatalá did not carry out the ebbó, but fell into a deep sleep. A strange noise woke him. He looked toward one corner and saw it crumbling; then the roof gave way, and the opposite corner also began to fall. The fright was so great that he became ill.

He hurried to Orunmila and told him everything. The diviner explained that this was happening because he had ignored the advice and left the ebbó undone. Obatalá begged him to save him. Orunmila prepared the ebbó and, before closing it, added that another cause was not having paid the forest what is owed to it, besides not carrying out the ebbó that the odu had marked. “Now you are unwell and your house is collapsing,” he said. “The figures who live in your house are hungry: offer each of them a rooster, placed in a corner, and one of the chicks from the ebbó; give them three cents; and take a zunzún bird to Osain in the forest.”

Obatalá did what he was told, felt better, and his house never fell again. Grateful, he went back to Orunmila, gave him a goat, prostrated himself before him, paid him moforibale and declared that no one could equal him.