Iwori Sa

Olodumare gave an office to each of his children on Earth. Ayaguna's was to provoke quarrels. Wherever he arrived he dominated by arms, and he did so in a good part of Africa. He was a restless spirit, at odds with all his neighbors.

Olodumare sent for him and asked the reason for ruling that way, since he wanted peace for all his children. Ayaguna replied: “Father, you live sitting down and it seems the blood does not circulate in you.”

Complaints kept reaching Olodumare about Ayaguna's brawls, since Ayaguna enjoyed only disputes and lived in continual war. He wanted to see whether this would reform him: he took away his rule over Africa and sent him to Asia. In that region Ayaguna found gentle people, who never challenged one another and where everything was calm.

He then thought that this peace was going to end, because he was a warrior and chief of warriors. He visited a nearby tribe and pushed it to attack the tribe where he was staying, assuring it that its people were naive. With tempers already hot, he returned to the land where he lived and spoke again to his hosts: a neighboring tribe, he told them, was going to declare war on them and invade; the invaders had to be faced, because the only choice was to win and not be defeated. He left no one in peace; he carried discord from house to house and from town to town through those quiet lands, until a war broke out that covered the entire world.

The peoples discovered that Ayaguna was the one who caused all that and complained again to Olodumare. He called him once more: “My son, I beg you: all I want is peace. I am peace, Alamore, the white flag.” Ayaguna answered: “Father, without discord there is no progress. Thanks to it the world advances: whoever has two wants four, and the most capable wins.”

“Agreed,” said Olodumare. “Then the world will go on until the wars cease, you give up discord and you lie down to rest.” That moment has not yet come, and it is a long way off.

When the world began, each kind of animal had its kingdom, but goats had no fixed place to live. The male ended up serving death and barely visited the she goat. She led a discontented life and had as a friend the hyena Koriko, who in truth was not one. Koriko invited her again and again on a trip; she pressed so hard that the she goat agreed to leave five days later.

Back at home, the she goat reasoned: “Koriko is to be feared and proposes a trip to me. It will be better to consult Orunmila.” She went to see him. He consulted the oracle and the Ifá Iwori Bosaso appeared. He warned her to be careful about whom she kept company with, because the weak always come out losing against the strong. He prescribed an ebbó and ordered her to put the hen, the ekó and the breads spread with bee honey into a sack; she was not to be parted from that sack when she left.

On the fifth day Koriko came for the she goat. The route went from Ife to Oyedele. Already far along, the hyena remarked: “Farther on I will surely be hungry. What are you going to feed me with? Did you not know that during the trip I could devour you?” Halfway along, hunger pressed her and she was getting ready to leap on the she goat, but out of the bush came the lion Keneun. Koriko greeted the lion and wanted to know what brought him to those parts. “My stomach hurts,” he answered.

Then Koriko asked the she goat: “Do you not have something to ease Keneun?” The she goat took the ekó out of the sack and offered it to him. When he finished, the lion said: “The pain is in my right side.” She gave him the breads with honey. Keneun said again: “Now I feel it in the middle.” The she goat answered that she had nothing more to give, but that a little meat from Koriko's leg would heal him. Koriko, afraid that the lion would eat her whole, allowed him to devour her leg.

“The pain moved to my back,” said Keneun, and Koriko let him eat her right foreleg. Then the lion announced: “Now I have it in my neck.” Koriko cried: “He wants to eat me entire!” and escaped limping, with Keneun behind her. The she goat took the chance to run to Oduduwa's house and begged him: “Save me!”

Oduduwa performed an Oparaldo with the hen she carried in the sack, and the breathlessness from the fright slowly eased. The she goat stayed in that house, in Oduduwa's service and as his helper. Her head came to be Oduduwa's seat in this Earth, so that the weak could rely on intelligence against the strong.

Two strangers met in a town, both without resources. To escape poverty they looked for work with the foreman of some woodcutters, and he hired them; to reach the job site they had to cross the sea.

After some time of labor, the two asked for their wages. The boss answered that he would pay when they returned to the town. But he was a false and scheming man who usually kept his workers' pay, and he tricked them just the same.

Without money, they asked for lodging from an old man who lived alone. He took them in and listened to their story. He said he already knew the reputation of that boss and his way of treating people, and he promised to help them.

The boss, pleased with his fortune, felt entitled to abuse anyone and had faith in nothing. The old man was Orunmila, who had already scolded him several times for his conduct without being heeded.

Orunmila consulted the oracle for the two men, this odu appeared, and he prepared the indicated ebbó for them. He gave Osain the tortoise and the speckled rooster, and charged him to visit the boss's plantations and damage his plants. To Eshu he gave the goat and its rooster, and asked him to give the boss no rest, by day or by night, so that he would learn to respect others.

That same day Osain began to sicken the trees, and Eshu, taking different forms, unsettled the boss. Seeing his plantations in that state and believing himself the victim of visions made by Eshu, the boss ran to Orunmila's house. Orunmila consulted the oracle again, the same odu came out, and he pointed out the works of Osain and of Eshu to restore his calm. He also warned him that from then on he must pay everyone who worked for him, and so ease in part the curse he carried for having cheated so many.

The boss did what Orunmila indicated and recovered his inner peace.