Oggunda Ka

A hunter had to have a reading with Orunmila. After the osode, Orunmila marked ebbó for him to free him from ofo, but the man did not do any of it. From then on, every time he went out hunting and shot with his arrow, he never got to see the animal, because Eshu, out of malice, made his catch disappear.

One time an elephant passed through those lands, though its death was waiting for it in the mountain. Seeing himself in such bad shape, the hunter went back to Orunmila, and there they warned him that now the price was double. This time he did make the ebbó: two roosters, seven sprigs of sage, jutía and fish, corn and corojo, an axe and white cloth. He went out to the bush again and came upon that elephant that was going to die in the mountain; he shot the arrow at it, the animal staggered and went over a bridge made of sage. The hunter went after it, and on the other side of the mountain he found gathered there all the game he had lost. Happy with the find, he set about tying up the elephants' tusks to put them in his saddlebag, and when he got to nine no more would fit; so he cut off their tails. People came for the meat, and one of them, with a blow of the axe to the elephant's head, found an aweba with a lid. He took it to Orunmila, who answered: "Do not take the lid off: make a cover for it, worship it and ask it for whatever you want; and when you have to feed it, take the cover off, but do not take the lid off — give it the food from the outside." Note: it is necessary to make Elegba; for anyone who already has him, it is looked at what has to be done or fixed for him. It marks ruin or being crushed; there is someone who wants to leave.

In this road, the land of Bebe Oriaye did not know Olofin. A Babalawo named Funke lived there, and the Awoses came to him to have Ifá made. The Orishas also came to that land looking for that Awó, so he would make it for their children; he always refused, claiming that Olofin did not exist, and they got annoyed. One day Awó Funke had a reading with Orunmila and this Odù came out, Oggunda Ka. Ifá ordered him to take a gourd, mark Oggunda Ka inside it, sacrifice a ram calling to Shangó, put the head in the gourd and bury it at the foot of the ceiba; the meat he was to stew to feed all the Babalawos of his house. At the moment of killing the ram he was calling to Orí Baba Olorun, and he sang: "Ori layee ori layekun Baba lorun ori layee babayerun yemi Ifa Olofin layeni Orun". He then felt something great over his head. He took two doves and, next to the gourd where the ram's head was, he fed his own head together with that head, while he said: "Fori eye eye lekun fiba Ejiogbe Baba lekun ori eye" — and he prayed straight through to the 16 Meyi. He stood up, stewed the doves with onions, dry wine and cocoa butter, and ate them; the bones he threw into the gourd, covered it and fell asleep.

Asleep he heard a voice speaking to him: "My name is Baba Oriye: I am going to tell you your great secret and where you have to go look for it so you find it. You are going to find the elephant and you will meet Shangó, who will tell you what you have to do with the gourd." Funke woke up frightened in the middle of the dream. Just then there was a knock at his door: it was Shangó, arriving with Egun. "Give me a rooster to give to Egun, who is hungry," he asked. While Egun took care of the rooster, Shangó stayed talking with Funke: "We have to make ebbó; we have to go to the land of Belekun Ori Aye, which cannot be crossed just any way, because there is a very big river where the elephants go to die; but we have to call the Egun named Ori Onilogun Egun Maye Afefetekun." They gave Egun a ram, and while he ate a wind rose that tore up plants and dragged sage to the feet of Shangó and Funke. Shangó placed an odu-ará on Funke's head and a cap on top; they carried all that sage and threw it into the river, and a great bridge formed. "You have to say: Ogunda Ka Awo bayeni Awo Funke Baba yeku lelekun aguani eun Baba ori aye Olofin," Shangó told him, and that is what Funke went on saying while he crossed.

"I will wait for you here to go to Ori Aye's house," Shangó warned him, and he went in to cross the river. Shangó let loose thunder and lightning, all of it went dark, and Awó Funke picked up a gourd that had the elephant's head inside and came back. Shangó took out a coconut he was carrying, broke it, chewed it and added cocoa butter, cascarilla, corojo and a powder he had with him; he emptied all of that into the gourd taken from Ayebelekun. He took the odu-ará off Funke's head, threw it into the gourd too, and rubbed cocoa butter on his head. Shangó and Funke set off on the road carrying Egun again, and they gave him this errand: "Go and tell Elegba to send me Obatalá's agogó." At that moment hot and cold water began to fall from the sky, and Shangó kept walking. Obatalá handed the agogó to Elegba so it would reach Egun, and Egun started to play it, singing: "Baba Olofin Ifa ni leyekun agogo layele". That is how they reached the house of Orí, who let them in and told them: "I will make your great secret for you, so you can make Ifá on the earth." To Iban Eshu. Note: from here was born that, to make Ifá, you need to have Olofin; and the Babalawo who is given Olofin has the three paraldos done by the river — a speckled hen, a black one and a white one — each one with a sprig of sage, and everything is thrown into the water.

Two hunters went deep into the bush. No wounded prey ever reached their hands: the animal would hide from them in the brush and they would lose it. They went on like that for a long time, after the elephants; when one fell wounded by their weapons, it ended up escaping across a wide river whose crossing only the animals knew.

Facing the quicksand of that river the two of them were left with no direction, and they asked each other: "How is it possible that, with them right at hand, they disappeared?" One day they wounded an elephant again and went after its trail. The animal went into the river and managed to cross it where the quicksand was firmest. The hunters, set on not losing its track, had gone into the sand flat; getting to it cost them work, because the ground rose and the mud made them slip. In that tight spot, the younger one proposed to the older: "I am going to climb on your back to reach firm ground; then I will lift you with a rope." And in that moment the young man, worked up, put the spear on the old man and abused him; the old man chose to lose his honor rather than his life. Time passed, and the young hunter was out with several young women when he ran into the other one. One of them wanted to know: "Why has that man, who is your friend and your hunting partner, not come to greet you? What is the problem between you?" At first he said nothing; but between the young woman's insistence and the drinks, he ended up telling what had happened between them in the woods. The gossip reached the old man: the townspeople began to doubt his morals, and he had no choice but to go live somewhere else. Note: hence the saying of this Ifá — it is better to lose your life than to lose your honor, because whoever loses it is left demoralized for the rest of his days — and hence also the ban on alcohol, since with it intimate secrets get loose and damage one's social life.