Oggunda Yeku fought for a living: at a fork of three roads, he threw his death-scaring stick behind him and took the road where it fell. He came to a town where you had to fight to live: he tore off his first opponent's arm — he prided himself on being better than the man who taught him. Two rival families were disputing land: one hired him, and he accepted out of need and ambition; days later, the enemy family hired him too — and he betrayed the first. The old man Oluo Popó, in whose shop he slept, sent him to Orunmila: «this ebbó is so they do not kill you when your betrayal is found out — but the shame you will not be able to avoid, and your own children will speak ill of you». In the next fight he pulled out, and the first family lost several of their own: they seized him, and instead of killing him they beat him to shame him. He left the town battered, with one leg ruined, known everywhere as a man who betrayed his own side for food and money — a traitor even to the one who gave him the art of fighting his way through life.
There was a time when Oggunda Yeku made his living by fighting. He came to a road that split into three, and since he did not know which one to take, he grabbed the aberikunló hook stick he was carrying, turned his back on the three roads and threw it; the stick flew and landed on one of the three, and he went that way.
He came to a town where whoever did not fight did not live. He had gone days with hunger, so the first thing he did was look for a fight: he tore off his opponent's arm with the machete, and he wounded the rest, since there were three of them. Everybody saw how that stranger moved forward, and he bragged that he had more skill than his own teacher. Two families in the town had been at odds for a long time over the land of one of them. One of the two sent for him and hired him as a fighter: they paid him well for fighting and he would not go without food. With need on top of him, and with ambition too, he said yes. When night fell he stayed at the place of an old man who ran a small business of meals, liquor and beds; that old man was Oluo Popó.
Days later the enemies of the family that had hired him came looking for him, so he would serve them too, and he accepted. He was committed to both, and neither one knew what he was doing — and right away he betrayed the first one. When he went back to Oluo Popó's business, the old man told him off, that this was not done, that it was failing the people who had given him their whole trust, and he sent him to get a reading: "Go to Orunmila, so he looks at you with Ifá and makes you ebbó." He came before Orunmila, who marked the ebbó and told him: "This ebbó is so that, when they find out your betrayal, they do not kill you; but what you will not be able to avoid is the shame you have to go through for having betrayed your brothers, and that your own children speak badly of you." He made the ebbó and took it to Yanzan's house. He stayed three days in the town without going out; in that time the first family sent for him to fight, and once the fight had started Oggunda Yeku pulled back, so that family left several dead in the battle. They caught him as a traitor and, instead of killing him, they beat him with sticks to shame him, because he was very defiant; he left the town beaten up and with a crippled leg. The family he had meant to defend spread the word that he was a traitor: driven by his hunger for food and money he had sold out his brothers in the cause, just as he betrayed the man who taught him the art of fighting in life. Note: doing favors is not good for you, and even less taking care of two matters at the same time, because that way you will never be happy and you will always come off badly.