Obara Trupon

He made the reading for the soldier ant (Ijalo), the worm (Ekolo) and the fly (Eshinshin), warning them that war was coming: Ijalo was to serve Eshu with a goat and a knife, and Ekolo and Eshinshin with a goat. Ijalo made the sacrifice; Ekolo did not. Eshinshin, after sacrificing, ran to the bush to build and hide a house with no doors or windows — while the war was breaking out. Eshu directed the invading troops toward the soldier ants, but he had used the knife from the sacrifice to equip their mouths as weapons: the ants ran for cover straight through the invading forces, and with the knives in their mouths they attacked anyone who tried to stop them. The worm, running to hide among the lines of ants, was cut to pieces by their knives.

While the war was dying down, some people looted the king's palace and hid what they had stolen in Eshinshin's house: she was accused of stealing the king's property, and at the trial, with no defense, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. At that moment, Eshu turned himself into a girl and asked her whether a reading had not been made for her; the fly confirmed that she had consulted Orunmila but had not sacrificed, and asked him to make the sacrifice for her — which he did at once. On the day of the execution, Eshu worked on the king's right-hand man and on the head of the court to ask for mercy: the fly was not guilty enough to be executed. The judge proposed that she be warned never to live in the bush again, and that from that moment she would live around wherever two or more people had settled. That is the reason flies live in towns to this day. In Igbodu: trouble is coming — a goat to Eshu with a knife, so as to survive any fight.

Ebara Turukpon made the reading for the elephant's head and for its tusks. They were warned that they had to make sacrifice so as to avoid being left behind in the forest after the rest of the elephant's body had been carried home.

Only the tusks made sacrifice. That is why, after an elephant is killed in the forest, only the tusks are taken from the head: the rest of the head is left behind. When this Ifá appears: sacrifice with a piece of white cloth and a goat, so you do not get lost in the forest or somewhere far from home, and die there.

Obara Turukpon made the reading for the sprite (Imere) when he was coming to earth: he made sacrifice with a goat and a whisk, but the father who would bring him into the world did not sacrifice to avoid losing a young child. The child was born and, because of the sacrifice made in heaven, did not die in childhood; but when he grew up and was a man, he died suddenly. Before his death he had become his parents' financial support, and they were left very poor. His father was a farmer; and when the young man, from heaven, saw his parents suffering, he went to his friends to have them help him work the farm: when the father cleared a small patch and went home, at night the son would arrive with a team of sprites and clear all the undergrowth; and so with the trees, the stumps and the plowing. The father went for a reading to find out whose the invisible hand was: he was told to hide in the bush around midnight, with a gourd dish in his hand.

Shortly before midnight he saw his dead son leading the team, each of them riding on a whisk; while they were digging the yam furrows, the father picked up his son's whisk. When they finished near morning, each sprite picked up his whisk — and the son's was nowhere to be found: he searched in vain, his friends left him and went back to heaven, and finding himself alone he began to sing «oni mu urumi mumi, ebara tiele, oloye». Without the whisk he could not return to heaven. At dawn his father came out and embraced him; they reproached one another — «did you not see how I have suffered since you left?» «that is why I was coming to give you a hand» — and won over by his father's feeling, he had no choice but to go home with him, even though it cost him the power to return to heaven. He went on quietly looking for his whisk, while the father kept the room where he hid it locked. In time the father relaxed, thinking his son had decided to stay: one day he drank too much, got drunk, hung his trousers with the key in the front room and fell asleep. The son searched the pockets, found the key, opened the room, found the whisk — and almost immediately left for heaven, where he rejoined his companions. After this, it was never again possible for those living in heaven to physically help anyone on earth. When this Odù appears: sacrifice with white cloth, a female goat and a gourd, so that the child who is only passing through does not leave you and return to heaven.