Ogbe She

The chain was feared by everyone in heaven, but it was very poor. Ogbe She marked it a sacrifice with a goat to Eshú, a rooster to Oggún and a coconut to its head, but the chain, offended at the idea when it could hold down deities and mortals alike, would not stoop to do it, and stayed poor.

Its job was to be head jailer: it guarded the prisoners and the animals waiting to be slaughtered, tying them by the neck or the legs. But as soon as their fate was decided, it was asked to let them go, with no reward and not a word of thanks.

So it was used over and over, always left empty. That is why it is said that no one should pray to suffer the fate of the chain, which works with no thanks and is pushed aside until it is needed again. This person must serve their head, Oggún and Eshú to avoid luck that never ripens.

Ogbe Sanwo suffered from a stomach illness and his brothers harassed him. Healed by the sacrifice, he prospered, but he forgot to serve Olokun, who had guided him into the world, and everything got tangled again. His Awó told him to cut a bunch of palm fruit without losing a single one and to catch a parrot, using a special axe.

In the forest, as he cut the palm fruit, the axe fell into the river; in despair, he threw himself in after it. Eshú, with the corn, the yams and the animals he had sacrificed, calmed in turn the birds, the goats, the tiger, the fire, the python and the whale that attacked him, until he reached Olokun's palace, where his axe had fallen.

Olokun, who needed the axe in order to have a child, offered to buy it; he said he would rather die than be parted from it, since his prosperity depended on it. In the end he agreed to hand it over if she made him prosperous; Olokun molded him as king of wealth and gave him a chest of prosperity. When he got home, the money began to flow and he was crowned king.

The divinities were asking God to send money to the world. His angel warned Orunmila that whoever went for it out of greed would die, and that he, the youngest, should go last. A parrot kept announcing «the money that came from heaven», and the queen of the witches worked out the message.

Oggún went out first and, in his hurry, dug at the mountain of money from below with an axe; the landslide buried him, and the money laid 16 shells on his chest. The same happened to the other divinities. Orunmila, seeing that none of them came back, went for divination, and was told to sacrifice with two ladders and two bolts, and to give money the food that money eats.

With a ladder set up by Eshú, he climbed and dug the mountain out from the top, without dying, finding the shells on the chest of each divinity. That is why every cult divines with the number of shells he found there, and why Orunmila's altar is decorated with a bed of shells. Only with patience, without despairing over someone else's fortune, do you prosper.