Odù 246 of 256 · Ofun family

Ofún Biroso

Where confession and letting your sorrows out were born: what you keep inside can kill you — and the ancestors speak to you in dreams.

Ofún Biroso is Odù number 246 of the 256 in Ifá, part of the Ofun family. This page brings together its prayer in Yoruba, 19 patakíes (3 with the full text), its proverbs, 10 ebbós and works and the signs it shows in the consultation; the detail of iré and osogbo, the eewó and the full recipes open with the Babalawo plan — that locked part is still written in Spanish.

The sign at a glance

Order in Ifá: Odù 246 of 256
Composition: Ofun over Iroso
In the Diloggún: 10-4 · Ofún tonti Iroso
Orishas that speak: Odduduwa · Olofin · Shangó · Yemayá · Elegbá · Oshún · Oyá · Yewá · Obatalá

What Ifá says in this sign

Ofún Biroso is the sign of the heart that lets things out: here confession and letting your sorrows out were born — it marks quiet worry and quiet suffering, and its medicine is talking: what you keep inside can kill you and dry up your heart. Here were also born eye makeup, the ritual marks on the face and the cut in the throat — and even the knock on the board: for Orunmila to speak, you have to strike him.

Its fable is about being reckless: paper and fire live face to face but never visit each other — the paper's insistence on that visit destroyed everything: do not court what burns you up. The cotton, on the other hand, won: the fire envied it for being white, and it put the fire out with the water of the ebbó — the clean one's defense is sacrifice, not a fight.

«What you keep quiet can kill you and dry up your heart — in Ofún Biroso confession was born as medicine.»The pulse of Ofún Biroso

Its papers cut both ways: this is the Ifá of paper that serves for good and for bad — trouble with property and deeds, and you can be taken to court over the very thing you preached: do not falsify the message of Ifá to protect yourself, the way the diviner Shofé did. The Awoses of this sign learn the secrets very fast, and there is a greater law: you do not receive Olofin without having Odduduwa — without those secrets nothing will come out right.

His home has an adviser in it: the woman who lifts the man up and tells him to keep going — respect her: the man who lives in love with the neighbor women does not see the stronger one who is taking him to his ruin. You had an obiní who dressed in pink, and since you parted from her you have had no life in you; for the woman whose fire has gone out, there are works that light it again. And your ancestors speak to you in dreams — Oluyaré is the Egun of this sign: listen to them.

Its rules about health are strict: alcohol is forbidden completely because of its part in epilepsy, the throat and the voice box are watched, fevers and swelling in the nose and ears are treated fast, and pride is a sickness too: whoever thinks he is King and looks down on others pays for it with humiliation — like the man with the cane field. You are poor and confused by three things: give thanks to Shangó and to Obatalá — and confess, because a dry heart gets nowhere.

The sign in one line

Let your sorrows out, do not court the fire the way the paper did, and give up alcohol — because the cotton of Ofún Biroso won with the water of its ebbó.

The prayer of Ofún Biroso · Yoruba

Osha Gerere Awó Alawó Bana Adifafún Olofin Efó Elebó, Orí, Akukó, Eyelé Lebó, Ofún Iroson Boyú Osha Gere Adifafún Alawó Bana Lorí Efú Orubó Kaferefún Odduduwa Awó Erún Okón Lodafún Obatalá Kaferefún Osun Loyú Awó Lenú Oni Lenú Awó Ni Kaferefún Orunmila Ikín Adifafún Olosun Korieyeye A Efún Soyú Sokún Ifá Ni Kaferefún Odduduwa, Ifá Ni Kaferefún Olofin.

Súyere
Eyé Orí Kanwá / Odduduwa Etiwá Orí / Iré Agbá Adié Olofin.

Ifá says — what Ofún Biroso tells you

It is the Ifá of paper that serves for good and for bad: trouble with property and deeds; he can be taken to court over the very thing he preached and prescribed. It is an Ifá where the message of Ifá gets falsified for self-protection, the way the diviner Shofé did with the Ewi. It points to losing everything and losing your place: the road of life ends without warning because of other people. This person has nothing to look forward to and has lost his way; it marks worry, sorrow and quiet suffering: here letting your sorrows out and confession were born. If this person has no Crown, he has to make Santo. The Awoses have to study and learn the secrets of Ifá very fast. The secrets of Odduduwa must be known, because without them nothing will come out right: Olofin is not received without having Odduduwa. The Egun of this Ifá is named Oluyaré; the ancestors speak to this person in dreams, and an inshé of Ozain is prepared so they will teach him the roads of life.
This person thinks he is King and out of pride treats everyone else with contempt: pride is paid for with humiliation, like the man with the cane field.
The woman lifts the man up and tells him to keep going, like the wife of the man who owned the palms.
The men do not respect their wives and live watching and courting the neighbor women, without noticing that there is one stronger than he is, who is taking him to his own ruin and the ruin of his home.
His friends do not take the advice of Ifá, like the three who would not plant squash.
Take care of the upper airway and the swollen belly: breathing in irritating fumes, growths in the voice box and the parts around it, wounds and injuries to the jaw and face, and swelling of the voice box.
Alcohol is completely forbidden in every form, because of its part in epilepsy; the genes that bring on fits and what has been passed down in the nerves should be looked at.
Look carefully and act fast with sharp fevers and swelling in the nose and ears; take care of your brain.
Be careful about surgery during pregnancy, and take care of one leg.
You had an obiní who dressed in pink, and since you parted from her you have had no life in you.
He goes through a shame over relations with an obiní; he can end up impotent: stop jumping from one place to another.
In the obiní the fire has gone out: the feeling in sex is lost (there are works to bring it back).
His business is only half working; he is poor and there are three things that have him confused: give thanks to Shangó and to Obatalá.
The ewé of this Odù are ground orosun and sapote.
Paper and fire speak, who live face to face but never visit each other: the paper's insistence on the fire's visit destroyed everything.
The cotton speaks, envied by the fire for how white it was and for how much Obatalá loved it: with the water of the ebbó it put out its enemy.
The mother of Orunmila speaks, the Virgin of the Rosary (Yanyá Yekún Loná): the Awó of this Ifá should use an okpele with rosary beads.
Yewá speaks — the Virgin of Monserrat, Our Lady of the Forsaken: her shadow turns this person into an antenna that Egun broadcast through.
The Egun Oluyaré speaks, the Egun of this Ifá.
Epilepsy speaks, which comes up in Ofún Biroso, Ofún Lení and Ofún Bilé; night epilepsy comes up in Ofún Birete (Bilé). The treatise describes it in clinical detail: the genuine or idiopathic kind, the symptomatic (focal) kind, the grand mal, the coma after a fit, and epilepsy that starts late in life.
Omí is thrown in the house and in the ebbó.

Proverbs of Ofún Biroso · Òwe

“Whoever plays with fire gets burned.”
“Each one has his own destiny assigned to him.”
“Pride is paid for with humiliation.”
“He is saved if he obeys.”
“He was found walking along the road.”
“Fire and paper live face to face but never visit each other.”
“Fire is put out with water, and that is how you put out your enemies.”
“The road of life ends without warning because of other people.”
“Ifá is falsified here.”
“Ifá protects only those who trust in him.”

10 proverb interpretations in this Odù, locked.Every proverb explained: which road it comes from and how it applies. Written in Spanish for now.Unlock →

Iré and Osogbo

9 iré and osogbo readings in this Odù, locked.The iré and osogbo of the sign, sorted by subject — health, money, love, death, loss… Written in Spanish for now.Unlock →

What is born in Ofún Biroso · Ìbí

Eye makeup and the ritual marks on the face.
The adié of this Odù get a line of efún painted over the right eye and one of osun over the left.
The cut in the throat.
The treatise sets out the cut into the windpipe through the neck and the tube, with when it is called for and when it is an emergency.
That it is taboo for a diviner or a worker of magic to lie with the wife of the person he reads for.
From the road of Shofé and the Ewi: adultery makes the ebbó and the medicine fail to work.
That you cannot receive Olofin without having Odduduwa.
Odduduwa, looked down on, went off to the center of the Earth and Shangó burned sulfur: the dying stopped when Odduduwa was recognized ahead of Olofin.
The Awó Alawobana, who hold the secrets of Odduduwa and of Olofin.
Shangó and Awó Erún Opón consecrated the Awoses of Osha Gerere in the secrets of Odduduwa.
That osun is put on the adelé for Orunmila to eat.
To remember that Shangó and Elegbá brought that power: Shangó comes before everything in that land, and that way the iná does not finish them off.
Letting your sorrows out, and confession.
Things kept inside can kill you and dry up your heart.
Loss of memory, the wearing out of the nerves in the brain, and epilepsy (the genuine or idiopathic kind, and the symptomatic or focal kind).
From the road of Orunmila and his mother: talking to his father at night changed his life and his memory.
That to atefar Ifá and have Orunmila speak through it, you have to strike it.
Orunmila, asleep, struck his mother without meaning to and swore: «For me to speak, in memory of you, they will have to strike me».
Falsifying the message of Ifá to protect yourself.
Shofé lied to the Ewi so they would arrest the diviner of Ofá and he would not lose his post.

What is forbidden · Eewó

7 eewó (taboos) in this Odù, locked.What the child of this sign must not eat, do or wear. Written in Spanish for now.Unlock →

Ebbós of Ofún Biroso · The sacrifices that open the road

Vencer enemigosEbbó of the cane grower and the palms🔒 Babalawo

La pérdidaEbbó of the paper and the fire🔒 Babalawo

Vencer enemigosEbbó of the cotton (with water)🔒 Babalawo

EspiritualEbbó of the secrets of Odduduwa🔒 Babalawo

SaludEbbó of Orunmila's mother🔒 Babalawo

EspiritualEbbó of the diviner of Ofá🔒 Babalawo

6 ebbós in this Odù, locked.Each full recipe: ingredients, preparation and where it goes. Written in Spanish for now.Unlock →

Works of Ofún Biroso · The workings of the sign

EspiritualThe basin of the ancestors (Atena of Ofún Biroso)🔒 Babalawo

AmorWork for feeling in sex between a couple🔒 Babalawo

SaludWork of Ofún Biroso for a man's strength with Oggún🔒 Babalawo

Alejar la muerteCleaning with the squash patch🔒 Babalawo

4 works in this Odù, locked.Each full recipe: ingredients, preparation and where it goes. Written in Spanish for now.Unlock →

Patakíes of Ofún Biroso · The roads of the Odù

1The barren land where Orunmila had them plant squash

Four friends kept insisting on planting corn in ground that gave nothing but fodder; Orunmila told them to plant squash, the friends refused, and the seed thrown down in anger gave a beautiful squash patch: Oshún taught them how to plant corn, Shangó marked out the yam, San Lázaro the beans, and Oyá blessed the land with plenty.

There were four friends who farmed a small piece of land and agreed to plant corn, and so they did. The four worked hard, but time went by and what the corn gave was fodder. They kept on insisting on planting corn, and the result was the same; the third year it went the same way.

Until one of the four, who had many children, began to plead with Olofin and all the Santos for that land to give him a good harvest. Elegbara, who was nearby, heard that pleading, went to the man, asked him what was wrong, and said: «Let us go to where Orunmila is».

They went to Orunmila's house, and after listening to the man he said: «Well then, do not plant corn anymore: plant squash, and take this seed». The man went off to where his friends were, and they would not do what Orunmila had said. And the man, annoyed, threw down the seed Orunmila had given him.

A short time later there was a beautiful squash patch in that place, with big, fine squashes. Oshún came by and was amazed, and said to them: «Do you sell those squashes?». And they said: «We do not sell them». «And what do you want for them?», Oshún asked. And they said: «A favor: that this land grow corn». Then she said: «That is easy; what you do not know is how to plant it». And she taught them how.

Then Shangó came and said: «What beautiful squashes, do you sell them?». They said no, that what they wanted was to be given corn. Shangó told them that what that land gave was yam, and they planted it the same way as the corn. San Lázaro came: «What lovely squashes, do you sell them?». «What we want is for this land to produce». And San Lázaro told them: «Plant beans». And they planted them.

Oyá came: «What big squash leaves, and here I am so hot from the Sun». And they told her the same thing, and Oyá had them plant trees, blessed their land, and everything grew in plenty.

Note: a chick for Elegbara and two hens for Oyá — clean yourself with them and then take them to Oyá at her house, on the outside.

2The cane grower who lost everything out of pride

A cane grower, thinking himself a King, threatened to cut down the palms of his humble neighbor; the neighbor's wife dreamed that he should go to Orula, who marked him an ebbó to be made in a hurry and thrown into the cane field; two homeless men who smoked beside the ebbó set the cane on fire: the palm was saved, the cane grower died of grief, and the one who obeyed was saved.

Ebbó: 16 pieces of sugar cane, ikordié, mariwó, earth from the foot of a palm, a cigar, abití, akofá, malaguidí meta, owó la meyo.

On this road there was a man who set himself to planting cane in a place where that business had never been done. Since he knew how it would turn out from what he had seen in other places, he already thought himself a King: he thought that before long he would be the richest man in that place, and his pride was so great that he looked down on other men and treated them with the greatest disregard.

There was another man who worked at growing palms, and with what they gave — the palm fruit, the brooms and the thatch — he lived modestly with his family.

The cane grower planted a great deal of cane over a huge stretch of land; heavy palms dropped their fruit over the cane, and the weight of it broke the cane, which made the cane grower take offense and pick a fight with the owner of the palms, telling him that he would have every palm inside his land cut down as soon as possible and without any consideration at all.

Facing that threat, the owner of the palms grew so sad that his wife had to lift him up. He never tired of asking Olofin that it not happen. After so much begging, she dreamed one night that she was told to go to Orula, to do what he told her, that everything would come out well, and that Eshu had sent it. Waking the next morning was a great joy for them, since they had a Santo to lean on.

The man went to Orunmila, and this Odù came out for him, and the man had to make ebbó in a hurry and throw it into the cane field. So he did, and when he went to throw the ebbó, two men who looked homeless followed him; after he threw it, they went to see what was in it and, since everything in it suited them, they agreed to stay in that place waiting for another ebbó. They cleaned the foot of the palm well, and so the days went by, with them talking and smoking.

But one day, when the cane was in flower, the wind picked up. The owner of the cane, pleased, got on his horse, telling people: «Soon I will be the richest man in this district». Then the horse took fright and threw him. The men who were inside the cane ran out and, since they were smoking, they set the cane on fire. The palm was saved from the fire, and the cane all burned. The cane grower died of grief. And the owner of the palms was saved, because he obeyed.

3The cane farmer and the peanut farmer

The rich cane farmer used to humiliate the peanut farmer; the peanut farmer made ebbó and put it on the road between the two fields; the rich man's horse tripped over the ebbó, the man struck a flame to see, threw it onto his own cane field and was ruined: he had to go ask the peanut farmer for work.

In this Ifá there were two men: one worked at growing cane and the other at growing peanuts. The cane farmer was very rich and had a great field. Every now and then he would pass by the peanut farmer's door to humiliate him.

But one day the peanut farmer went to Orula's house. When he got there, Orula saw this Ifá for him and told him he had to make ebbó and that, once it was finished, he had to put it on the road that ran between the two fields.

The peanut farmer did so, and one day, when the cane farmer was passing along the boundary path, his horse tripped over the ebbó. The farmer struck a light and made a flame to see what his horse had tripped over and, when he made out what it was, he threw the flame down, and it fell into his cane field: the field caught fire and the cane farmer's whole planting was destroyed, and he was ruined and had to ask the peanut farmer for work. And so the peanut farmer lived in more peace. Maferefún Orunla, Maferefún Orishaokó.

4The man who did not respect his wife🔒 Babalawo

5Shofé, the Ewi's diviner, and «He was found walking along the road» (the diviner of Ofá)🔒 Babalawo

6The paper and the fire🔒 Babalawo

7The cotton and the fire🔒 Babalawo

8Olofin must not be received without having Odduduwa (the land of Osha Gerere)🔒 Babalawo

9Loss of memory and the wearing out of the nerves in the brain (why Orunmila is struck to atefar)🔒 Babalawo

10In the obiní the fire went out🔒 Babalawo

11Shangó burned sulfur in the bowels of the Earth🔒 Babalawo

12The worshippers of the clay🔒 Babalawo

13The parrot feathers🔒 Babalawo

14Where the memory is lost🔒 Babalawo

15The orphan🔒 Babalawo

16The princess complex🔒 Babalawo

17Borrowed knowledge🔒 Babalawo

18The seven princes and the daughter of the rain🔒 Babalawo

19Magic and Ifá🔒 Babalawo

16 more patakíes in this Odù, locked.Read every road in full with the Babalawo plan. Written in Spanish for now.Unlock →

Before you subscribe: everything you read on this page is in English, but the locked part of the treatise — the full text of the other patakíes, the recipes for the ebbós and works, the iré and osogbo readings and the eewó — is still written in Spanish. We are translating it. · This page is also available in Spanish: See Ofún Biroso in Spanish →

Frequently asked questions about Ofún Biroso

What does the Odù Ofún Biroso mean in Ifá?

Where confession and letting your sorrows out were born: what you keep inside can kill you — and the ancestors speak to you in dreams.

What number is Ofún Biroso among the 256 Odù of Ifá?

Ofún Biroso is Odù number 246 of the 256 in Ifá, part of the Ofun family.

Which orishas speak in Ofún Biroso?

In the Odù Ofún Biroso these orishas speak: Odduduwa, Olofin, Shangó, Yemayá, Elegbá, Oshún, Oyá, Yewá, Obatalá.

What is a proverb of the Odù Ofún Biroso?

One of the proverbs of Ofún Biroso says: «Whoever plays with fire gets burned.».

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