Ojuani Yeku

Olofin was trying to catch Orunmila out: he took a quantity of corn from his store, roasted it and sowed it, and then sent for him to make osode. He asked him about his corn planting, and Orunmila told him every grain would come up. «If they do not all come up», said Olofin, «I will settle with you afterward».

On the way home, Orunmila met Eshu, who revealed the trick: Olofin had roasted all the corn before sowing it. He marked him an ebbó with a rooster, to be given to him. Elegba called Shangó to work and to eat: he delivered the ebbó at Olodumare's house, said Orunmila needed corn, and they filled his sack. At night they went to the field: Shangó set about hoeing and Elegba took out the grains of roasted corn Olofin had sown and put good ones in their place. When they had finished, a heavy storm of rain and thunder broke so nobody would notice that anyone had worked there. On the third day, the corn Olofin had sown began to come up. Orunmila presented himself to collect for his work, and Olofin, amazed, made ebbó with a goat, a rooster and a hen, and afterward a cleansing.

There was a trader nobody knew, because his shop was a long way from all the others and nobody knew of it. One day a small boy came into that shop and was very well looked after by the owner; and as he looked after him, the trader prospered.

He prospered so much that he began to think himself very important and started treating the boy badly. The boy went off to the nearest shop, whose owner knew who he was and began looking after him very well. The boy stood on the corner by the other trader's shop, turning aside the road of everyone heading there. That is why the second shop, whose owner had been ruined, prospered, while the other one fell into ruin. The boy was Elegba disguised as a beggar: if you do not have Elegba, receive him at a run and attend him.

In the land of Bari Bawa lived Awó Iboshe, who had a daughter named Ibori Abariyeku; she left home because he cursed her over her bad manner with everyone. She ended up at the house of a son of Shangó and had by him a girl, Oboni Yeku, who grew up very beautiful and afterward married an omo Ozain who taught her great secrets, so that she lived very well — coming to hold great power over Ozain's son.

Every day she went where the gourd was, to gain power: she called it with three whistles, gave it fresh fish blood and sang to it «Yeyele Ikú, Yeyele Ikú, mawa Ozain». The gourd moved, she blew smoke over it with her ashé and spoke to it; she consecrated a stick of arique to call it with three knocks. When she did it for the first time, she turned into a great power, and when Ozain's son arrived, she turned into blood. He cursed her and threw her out — «you will never be near me again» — leaving her the land she was living on. His consecrated son, Onikuele, pressed his father so hard that he went off to another land with his santo, to make his way. Onikuele came to Oboni Yeku's land and fell in love with her; she, with her power, saw to it that he took her to his secret. One day she sang beside his secret, and he, answering the song, kept loosening her hold: she lost power as she sang, and when he began striking with the sticks of the ebbó, the woman lost her power entirely. This road explains that Ikú reaches every omo Ogún before it reaches his wife, if they do not know what they have to do.