Ojuani Tura

In another time Ogún lived in misery, hungry and with ragged clothes. Yemayá, who ran a very prosperous money business, felt compassion: “My business is small, but I will lend you a hand with what I have.” Ogún was glad, because with what she gave him he had enough to eat.

Those who wished Yemayá harm envied her skill at trading. They approached Shangó, the supplier of the herbs, and proposed doing business with them. When the time came to pay they had nothing to pay with, since the profits were divided among many, and they blamed Yemayá: according to them, she kept everything by selling at a lower price. So Shangó thought about handing the business over to them and taking it from her.

Those people used Ogún for their errands and began to fill his head with intrigues: Yemayá made him work all day; she had asked Shangó not to deal with him, because he would not pay; and later she would report him to Obatalá for the damage he caused in the town.

Ogún, not very sharp and tormented by so many tales, went to Shangó to look for herbs. The rumors had reached Shangó too, and he answered: “I will give you nothing, because Yemayá says you could accuse me before Obatalá.” Blinded by anger, Ogún did not go to ask Yemayá anything: he raised his machete and tried to kill her. Oshosi stepped between them, cleared up all the misunderstandings and managed to save her.

This is how the gossip born of envy came about. That is why the sign commands people not to believe it and to ask the person before raising the machete.

An Awó had great luck for years, but by neglecting his affairs he ended up badly off in everything. He resolved to go out and try his fortune and, since he had nothing more, he first performed a rogación of the head.

Carrying a bag with his utensils, he arrived in the land of Kentu, which belongs to Eshu. On a corner an old man was standing, and the Awó left jutía, toasted corn and smoked fish there. The old man asked him whether he lived in that place. The Awó said no and told him his situation. The old man took him to his house to give him lodging. He explained that, since the Awó had put food on the corner when he was hungry, he wanted to repay him with his help. He also asked for a little more food to have strength. The Awó handed over everything he carried: the fish, the smoked jutía, the toasted corn, the ekó, the palm oil and the aguardiente. That old man was Eshu. He introduced him to people, recommended him and advised him to give up his carelessness and look after his affairs better, so as not to fail before the Santos and to gain renown in the place.

And so it happened. After a short time, most of the inhabitants declared him a favorite son and called him Omo Lakentu, which means just that. Nevertheless, other people of the place, who used prendas and things that were not of the Santos, rejected that an outsider should enjoy so much fame. They joined together to harm him and make him leave, but Eshu and Obatalá protected him. Then the enemies agreed to watch his every step to discredit him and hinder him.

One day they followed him and saw him kneel before a very tall hill in the countryside; he looked upward and made invocations, and then went back home. The enemies gathered little pieces of stone and iron and thorns from brambles, left them where he had knelt and disguised them with quimbaza leaves and fine grass.

The next day the Awó returned to pray and ask. When he bent his knees he was pricked, and when he put his hands down to rise he was cut. He gathered what he could of it, with the plants, and at home he healed himself using those same plants. Then he consulted osode to ask Orunmila how to keep those misfortunes from continuing to happen to him and how to drive his enemies away. In the ókpele Ojuani Alakentu came out. Ifá ordered him to prepare an ebbó and leave it at the foot of the hill, with the trap and the rest spread over the three paths of the countryside that led there. The Awó obeyed.

At nightfall he made his round through a different place than usual, to circle around and return home from the opposite side. His enemies, unable to see well in the darkness where he went in, took the paths and also hurt their feet. It was night, they were deep in the countryside and they took a long time to get out of the tangle of plants. On reaching level ground, some of them, who numbered 304, no longer had time to heal: some were killed by a spasm, and others by loss of blood and anemia. That is how Omo Alakentu freed himself from his enemies, with the help of the ebbó, Eshu and Obatalá.

In this path there lived a man in great poverty, named Tetelane. He had no wife; he ate field mice and dressed in a cape and trousers of mouse skin.

Once he left his miserable hut to hunt mice in the bush and found a hen's egg on the ground. He thought of eating it the day the wind blew from a certain side, so he kept it in his cape and went on hunting. Back home he put it in a safe place, waiting for that wind.

The next morning he went back to the bush as always. When he returned, at nightfall, he found freshly baked bread and freshly made liquor. This repeated for many days, and he asked himself in surprise who could bake bread and prepare liquor if not a woman, and he had none.

One fine day, mysteriously, a beautiful woman came out of the egg. She warned him: “When you drink liquor and are drunk, never call me daughter of the hen's egg.” From then on she lived as Tetelane's wife.

Some time later she asked him whether he would like to rule over other people, and he said yes. The woman went out and spent a while beating with a stick the place where the ashes were. At dawn Tetelane woke among the voices of many people. He was now a chief, he wore jackal skins, his hut was an enormous mansion, and a crowded village surrounded it. From everywhere they greeted him in loud voices as chief, and everyone wanted to see him.

He slowly filled with pride. He scorned his mouse skin clothes, ordered them burned, and asked to wear only jackal skin. At night he slept under good blankets.

One day he drank so much liquor that he could not even move, and he shouted to his wife: “Hey, daughter of a hen's egg, come!” She asked whether it was really he who called her that, and he confirmed that yes, that was what she was.

That night he lay down wrapped in his jackal skins and, in the deep sleep of alcohol, noticed nothing. At midnight the cold woke him. With his hands he felt that he lay on hard ground and that his old mouse pelts covered him, so short that they barely reached his knees. His wife was not there; he was in his old hut. He got up very frightened and saw that nothing was left of the village. Then he remembered everything and lamented: he had not known how to keep that secret quiet, and now he did not know what would become of him.

He was once again in total poverty, without a wife or children. He reached old age and died with no food other than mouse meat and no clothing other than dried pelts.