Ogbe Sa

Ogbe Osa, like Orunmila, had many enemies in Heaven, and because of the Elders of the Night he ran to take refuge on Earth. This story explains how Orunmila protected himself from the plans of four mortal enemies, whose heavenly names were: Ojo Giri Ke Somo for Water, Oshupa Ota Giri Konran for the Moon, Orunrun Ojodon for the Bright Sun and Uno Omo Ojogbo for Fire.

The four were scheming against Orunmila. Early one morning he did a divination, and Ifá uncovered the conspiracy for him. It advised him to offer a hen in ebbó, cook soup in three clay pots and leave a fourth pot empty, without soup. He also had to serve four plates of mashed yam, which had to be made of calabash or gourd, and get one whole uncut gourd and many stakes. Everything had to be left at the last crossroads before his house. Orunmila did it at once.

The next morning the Moon, Water, the Sun and Fire set out to attack Orunmila at his home. But at the crossroads they found the ebbó and sat down to eat. Fire carried off a pot of soup along with a plate of yam; the other two plates went to the Sun and the Moon. At that moment, the divinity of Obstacle, named Elinini or Idoboo, took the empty gourd and carried it far away, convinced that it held food. Water, the youngest, reached the last plate of yam, but there was no soup left for him.

He begged Fire to give him a little soup to go with the yam. Fire said no: it was his custom not to share his food with anyone. He tried the Sun and the Moon, and they gave him nothing either.

Water, angry, reproached them for looking down on him because he was the youngest. He threw away his plate of yam and began a war song. With the stakes, which were nothing other than raindrops, he struck Fire until it went out, and with even heavier drops he beat the Sun and the Moon until he destroyed them.

In this way Orunmila’s enemies finished one another off, and he was left alone, in calm and peace.

That is why, if this odu appears in someone’s consultation, the person is warned that four mortal enemies are after him to kill him, and that he needs to make an ebbó to be rid of them.

Epikpayemi had four suitors, who were Rain, Fire, the Moon and the Sun, and none knew about the others. All four wished to marry her. Although she invited them to visit, she kept no intimacy with any of them. Noticing that they were growing impatient, she decided to consult Orunmila in order to learn which of them should be her husband.

Orunmila ordered her to offer a hen, a rooster and a dove, along with a piece of black cloth, and she carried it out. He also told her to serve mashed yam on three plates, leaving the fourth empty. With the meat of the three birds she was to make three pots of soup, and the fourth would stay unfilled. And he warned her against flirting: the suitor she liked best might not be her husband.

Back home, she left the food ready and went off to have her hair braided. Fire met her first and asked whether she had food for him. She told him to go to her house and eat a share of what she had left. Later the Sun appeared, and she gave him the same answer; then the Moon, the same. Rain arrived last and found only the empty pot. He went to look for her to find out what she had prepared for him. She assured him that she had made four plates of yam and four pots of soup, with good meat and good seasoning, and asked him which of the others had eaten the fourth portion, the one that belonged to him. Rain became furious and went out to find the bold one who had eaten his share together with his own. She insisted it was not her fault, since there was enough food for all four.

With Rain's anger the clouds gathered and a heavy downpour fell at once. He rushed the Sun and the Moon up into the firmament, and Fire escaped to hide inside a rock. That is why, when rain threatens, the Sun and the Moon go to hide in the heights. That is also why, since the stone age, people have obtained fire from stone by striking it with flint: the Fire took refuge there from the onslaught of Rain, who falls just the same on a deity, on a king or on an ordinary citizen.

With the three rivals defeated, Epikpayemi ran to embrace Rain, glad to have found at last her true husband. Then she sang a song: before the ebbó she preferred fire to water, but the sacrifice made itself present and declared Rain her husband. She closed by praising Orunmila, who made the sacrifice for her.

At the consultation, Orunmila had warned Epikpayemi, a woman of great beauty and light complexion, not to go around flirting. In a song of victory she had sung earlier, she said she preferred the most handsome of her suitors, the Sun. However, the ebbó showed that her husband should be the Rain. Even so, she kept running after the Sun in secret.

The Sun, who could not be defeated, could not stand losing. Each time he looked out from among the clouds he belonged to, he repeated his declarations of love, and she struggled to resist. When he understood that he would not win her, he resolved to punish her. He went to Fire and called him to come out of the stone; Fire came out and handed him his staff of authority (Ashé) to use against Epikpayemi.

Armed with the staff of fire, the Sun went to see her one day when her husband was away. When she saw him, she remembered how much she had admired him, embraced him warmly and, almost without noticing, fell in love again. Even so, she remembered that she must not deceive her husband and determined that it would all remain an affection without consequences.

Only seducing her would satisfy the Sun. Since he did not manage it with words, he persuaded her to go with him to a meadow of Heaven covered with dry bushes. There he stopped and demanded that she choose: die or run away with him. She did not yield.

Epikpayemi had erred: she did not tell her husband what the Sun was proposing to her, nor did she go back to Orunmila to ask his advice, because she enjoyed the situation. But when she had to decide between living and dying, she chose death rather than deceive her husband. The Sun raised his staff of fire, set the forest ablaze and vanished, leaving her in the flames. Surrounded by the fire, she called to her husband with a song: she begged him to rescue her from the Sun and from Fire, swore that she was dying out of loyalty to him and had never deceived him, and asked him to hurry so as not to lose her forever.

As soon as the Rain heard the song, he gathered the clouds and unleashed a storm that put out the flames. She breathed with relief. But when it was about to die out, Fire slipped into the edge of the forest. While she was going home, the fire had reached a very dry tree and burned its root from within, beneath the ground. Epikpayemi put her foot in the hole and fell onto the hidden fire, which burned her hands and legs. The rain went on and finally put everything out, but by the time she was free she had already lost her limbs and had to reach home dragging herself on her belly.

When he saw her, her husband did not know who she was. He wondered what woman was dragging herself toward his house. When he came closer, he saw with horror that it was his wife. She told him everything, and he embraced her, grateful for her loyalty, and promised not to leave her even though she was deformed. He changed her name to Ekolo in Yoruba, or Ikolo in Benin: “the Faithful.”

Ekolo is the earthworm. Faithful to her husband, she comes to the surface only when it rains; if there is fire or strong sun, she hides under the ground.