Odi Ogbe

Ifá had not been born yet and, inside the womb, he addressed his father Olofin with these words: “Sacrifice a white bull to Alufina, that is, to Shangó. If you leave it out, in less than three years war will devastate the country. I will come into the world on the day my father dies.” Olofin ignored that voice singing inside his wife.

When Odigbere was finally born, the war broke out that very day, and Olofin had to march off to battle. The newborn begged his mother to keep him in a hollow gourd, cover it well and hide it in a room. The warriors who entered the house did not discover him; instead, they seized the mother and took her away as a slave.

The gourd stayed in the room. There it divined for and healed anyone who came near. An old woman took care of it with great affection. One morning the gourd spoke to her: “Open me.” When she uncovered it, the old woman saw smoke come out, and the smoke took the shape of a strong, handsome young man, who introduced himself: “I am Odigbere, the Ifá who divines for the whole world, and my voice fills the temple of Ifá.”

Then he asked the old woman to go with him to the square, where he would buy a slave woman with 41 cowrie shells; he told her that the first woman they came across would be his mother. In the market they found a slave woman who was grinding corn and who said she cooked for the Obá of the Congos. While she ground, she sang. Odigbere paid for her, because she was his mother. Later he prayed his sign while fanning his prenda, and the sovereign of the Congos, the woman's owner, passed away. Odigbere gave freedom to all the slaves, and they would worship him as long as they kept feeding him.

The awó Edigbe held a consultation for Baatá, a woman who wished to marry, and another for Shangó, a man who wished to have a wife. He recommended to both of them, each one separately, that they make ebbó, and both obeyed. Shangó offered a goat; Baatá offered a billy goat.

With the offerings ready, Edigbe told Baatá to take hers to the river nearest the market, and told Shangó to go to the riverbank.

Each one was praying with the offering in both hands when, without looking for it, they saw and heard each other. Once they had left what they had brought, Shangó invited Baatá to come closer and she accepted. Then each wanted to know why the other was making ebbó, and both admitted that they were looking for someone to marry. When they learned what both of them wished for, they fell in love, embraced and decided right there to marry. From that day they were happy.

That is the reason Shangó and Baatá are still husband and wife.

Orunmila was always curious about the source of the great authority, or ashé, of four divinities: Day, Night, Death and Witchcraft. Envy gnawed at him and he wanted a similar power. He went to his Awó of heaven, who explained to him that only those four were permitted to keep watch over Almighty God while he bathed. At dawn, the first crow of the rooster announced that the bath was beginning; the second, that it had ended.

The Awó told him that, if he risked looking at God during the bath, he would at once receive the same ashé as they had. He had to hand Eshu a goat, since Eshu would support him, and also a rabbit and a female goat: the rabbit to Night and the female goat to Death. Later he would also have the approval of his guardian angel. Orunmila carried out the sacrifices.

He then put on the garment that made him invisible, set up a ladder and climbed to the upper part of God's bathroom. When God went to take water with his gourd vessel, it slipped and fell. He tried a second time and the same thing happened. He concluded that someone was spying on him. Two of the four, Death and Witchcraft, who had received the sacrifices, saw Orunmila but kept silent, and told the Almighty Father that nobody was there. By then Orunmila had already beheld God unclothed and possessed the power he sought.

God, convinced that he had been spied on, finished his bath and went into his inner chamber, where he kept the mirror with which he watched over heaven and earth. In the mirror he discovered Orunmila. He ordered Death to go after him and capture him. Orunmila noticed that he was being followed and, with his brand new power, asked the bushes to cover him. Death went right past, although on the way back it caught sight of him and resumed the hunt.

Orunmila fled toward the river and begged the fish to hide him; they did so. On reaching the river, Death understood that the search was getting nowhere. It went back before God to confess its failure. Since then Orunmila can make and unmake.