Ojuani Alakentu

It once happened that Ogún was going through hard times and great need: his clothes were falling off him in rags. Yemayá, who had a very good money business, took pity on him: «My business is not a big one, but I can give you a hand with what I have». Ogún, glad of it, ate and kept himself going on what she gave him. But Yemayá's enemies, envious of how good she was at business, went to Shangó — who was the one supplying her with herbs — and did business with him. When Shangó went to collect, they could not pay him, because there were too many of them sharing, and they told him Yemayá was cornering the business by selling cheaper. Shangó then thought of taking the business away from Yemayá and giving it to them.

Those people had Ogún running errands for them, and they began to poison him with gossip: that Yemayá had him working for her all day long, that she had told Shangó not to do business with him because he would not pay, and that she would then report him to Obatalá for the trouble he caused in town. Ogún, slow-witted and eaten up by so much gossip, went to Shangó to ask for herbs, and Shangó — who had heard gossip of his own — told him: «I cannot give you anything, since Yemayá says you might report me to Obatalá». Ogún, furious, without asking Yemayá a single question, took his machete and tried to kill her — which he did not manage, because Oshosi stepped in, cleared up every last piece of gossip and so was able to save Yemayá. Here gossip born of envy was born: that is why this sign orders you not to believe it, and to ask before you raise the machete.

There was a very lucky Awó who came to be in a bad way in every respect through his own carelessness. He decided to go out and seek his fortune; before leaving he had his head prayed over, since he could not afford more. He reached the land of Kentu — Eshu's land — and scattered jutía, smoked fish and toasted corn on a corner where an old man was standing. The old man, who was Eshu and was hungry, took him home, gave him shelter and asked him for a little more; the Awó gave him everything he was carrying in his bag. Eshu found him people, recommended him, and advised him not to be so careless, so he would not fail on the Saints' account. Before long, the people proclaimed him their favorite son: Omo Lakentu.

But other people who worked with prendas were not happy that an outsider had such a name. Since Eshu and Obatalá were protecting him, they agreed to follow his movements to discredit him and get in his way. One day they saw him kneel at the foot of a hill to make his invocations; the next day they scattered bits of stone and iron and bramble thorns there, covered over with quimbaza leaves and fine grass. The Awó pierced himself as he knelt and cut his hands as he got up: he gathered it all up with the same herbs, healed himself with them, and made osode. Ojuani Alakentu came out: ebbó, thrown away at the foot of the hill, with the trap and the rest scattered along the three paths that went up the hill. So he did, and at nightfall he went home by a different road from the one he took every day. His enemies, who could not see where he had gone, came in along the paths and cut their feet; it was night, they were a long time getting out of the tangle, and of the 304, some had spasms and others were lost to blood loss and anemia. That is how Omo Alakentu got his enemies off his back, helped by the ebbó, by Eshu and by Obatalá.

There was an extremely poor man called Tetelane: he did not even have a wife, he lived on field mice, and his cloak and trousers were made of mouse skin. One day, going out to hunt, he found a hen's egg and kept it to eat when the wind blew from a certain direction. The next day, coming back from the bush, he found freshly baked bread and freshly made aguardiente — and so it went for several days, while he wondered in amazement who, if not a woman, was baking that bread. At last, mysteriously, a beautiful woman came out of the egg and said to him: «When you are drunk on aguardiente, never call me daughter of a hen's egg». And she became his wife.

One day she asked him if he would like to have people under his command, and struck the ash pit with a stick: when he woke, Tetelane was a chief — the hut was a great mansion, all around was a village full of people calling out «Hail, chief!», and he was dressed in jackal furs. He began to grow proud: he despised his old mouse-skin clothes and had them burned. Until one day he got so drunk he could not move, and shouted: «Daughter of a hen's egg, come here!». «Is it you, Tetelane, who called me that?». «Yes: you are a daughter of a hen's egg». That night he slept wrapped in his jackal furs — and at midnight he woke up cold, lying on the hard ground, covered with his old mouse skins that barely reached his knees, inside his old hut. The village was gone. «Oh, what will become of me! Why could I not keep that secret?». He went back to being a completely poor man, with no wife and no children; he grew old and died eating the flesh of mice and wearing his dried skins. Here Egun matters a great deal, and it is the woman who brings the luck: the day you abandon them, you never get back on your feet again.