Iroso She

The deities sent the Guardian Angel to take the people away. When he came down, he grabbed them and dragged them off behind Ogún's house; they shouted: "Ogún, help me, the Guardian Angel is dragging me by the feet!". Ogún wanted to know what was going on, but the guardian did not stop, and that way they went past the house of each of the deities of the earth.

Once they were all gathered, the guardian of the soul told them what had happened. Orunmila examined him, saw this Odù —Iroso She— and proposed that he would take charge of collecting, and that people would sacrifice for the guardian of the soul. The guardian then let the people go, and from that day on Orunmila gathers each year what each person's head asks for as sacrifice and hands it over — and the guardian, in exchange, gives him his share. Since then people also give something to Orunmila so he will be their go-between and speak well of them before the deities and their ancestral guardians: that is why it is said that Orunmila is the go-between of the soul. Through this Odù you must make Santo or Ifá so as not to be lost, pray your head and feed the Orishas: the person is on bad terms with their Guardian Angel.

The board where Orunmila did his readings belonged to Shangó, who had two helpers: Elegba, the errand runner in charge of taking away the ebbós, and Osanyin, to whom he trusted the secrets of the herbs. But between women and parties Shangó had less and less time left, and he ended up handing the board over to Orunmila: "You are the greatest diviner, the only one meant to keep it". He taught him how to handle it and told him: "If you have any trouble, call me by putting sixteen thunderstones on the ground, inside a circle of gunpowder that you will set on fire".

Neither of the two helpers had been named for the job, and out of pure spite they stopped cooperating: Elegba did not take the works where he should, but wherever he felt like it, and Osanyin went into the bush to work his own rule. Everything turned to disorder, and Orunmila called Shangó in the way he had been told. Shangó came at once, went out to look for them, found Osanyin in the bush and let loose a storm of lightning on him. The bush burned, and Osanyin, until then a perfect man, was left without an eye, without an ear, without an arm and without a leg. Crawling, he reached Orunmila's house and passed out there; when he came to, he was amazed: instead of leaving him lying there, Orunmila had cared for him and healed him. Sorry for it, he asked for forgiveness and promised to be his slave. Elegba, when he heard about it, came too: "I was deceiving him as well; from today you are the only one who has power over me on earth". From that moment Orunmila had his two servants and could see how his works ended up — and that is how physical imperfections were born.

As soon as the earth was created, Olofin placed Banga on it, the oil palm, which had gone deep into the secrets of life itself; that is why the spirit of Ifá joined with her. Nobody knew Olofin: whoever wanted to know something would lean against Banga's trunk and ask her, and she would guide him spiritually. Neither men nor beasts died in those days, and Banga was held to be the supreme divinity. She went to see Orunmila, who saw this Odù for her: "The palm tree has everything, everything in you has value for life. Make ebbó — and your last secret will help human beings: you will be the food of Kushé, the spirit of fire".

Men already knew what their hands were for, but lighting the fire and keeping it was beyond them. A hunter named Kushé found the tree of fire and cooked yams in its coals, and they tasted very good to him. Going back into the bush he ran into Osanyin Aroni Elesekan — one eye and one foot, long hair, a hairy body — who led him to Banga. She taught him to pick the sacred nuts with fewer than three eyes to take out the corojo and the oil from their kernels, to cook food with that fat, and to prepare the Adé Iná with the fibers of the dry ikines, good for taking fire in the bush and for keeping the family fire. By the light of the Adé Iná, Kushé was initiated into Ifá and learned all of Banga's secrets — for he was the son of Orunmila with Adamá, the woman of fire. He went back to his land with palm oil in a malanga leaf and a burning wick of fiber, and became Obá. That is how the first men learned to cook with fat and to keep fire, and Banga was left as the tree of life, which divines everything. That is why the Awoses light the Igbodun with ikin wicks before candles.