Osa Meyi

Osa Meyi was escaping from Iyami Oshooronga when he entered the womb of the first woman he found. He did not know that he was escaping one risk only to fall into a greater one, because the future mother was part of the witchcraft cult. His arrival had a purpose: to save that woman’s husband, whom she was already preparing as an offering for the Elders of the Night.

After birth, the child always cried very late at night, and nobody understood the reason. The father, who was not initiated, knew nothing, and both parents got up to calm him. Only the mother knew the cause: with his crying, the child stopped the rite being carried out against his father, who was meant to be the food of a meeting of sorcerers. This lasted until he learned to speak. Then he stopped crying and shouted the name Iyami Oshooronga, which woke the mother at once and pulled her abruptly out of the night ceremony in which her husband was to be sacrificed. This repeated every week, always on the same day.

On a certain night, the sorcerers demanded an account from the mother: they wanted to know why she suddenly left the meeting every time she prayed with the goat. (She turned her husband into a goat before trying to kill him, because the sorcerers did not kill a person without first transforming him into an animal.) The mother told them that, at just those moments, her son shouted the name of the sorcerer mother. They ordered her to appear with the child at the next meeting, a general assembly with a banquet. All the sorcerers had gathered money to serve their heads that night.

When the day came, the head of each member was served, one after another. When it was Osa Meyi’s turn, they served his head too, but he did not taste the goat: he had not contributed to buy it, and he was not initiated into the cult either.

At dawn the next day, Osa Meyi got up and recommended that his father serve his head with a goat, relying on a dream of his own. He told him that this way he would be cured of his long illness. The father listened to him and bought the goat. When the sacrifice was made, Osa Meyi asked his mother for an open clay pot and plenty of oil. He gathered pieces of the goat and the leftover meat, and put it all in the pot and added oil, salt and earth from the ground (today represented by the divination powder). Then he took the pot to the incinerator. This is how the first human offering directed to those Elders began, and from it the way of making offerings to them was learned, to this day. Then everyone went to sleep; the next day the mother did not wake again, while the father was healthy.

When the mother died, Osa Meyi understood what had happened, and later he told his father that she had caused his illness, and he told him that he used to see her in dreams.

For this reason some priests of Ifá consider him a sorcerer, although he never was one. From then on people respected him, and whoever wanted to serve his head invited him to make the sacrifice. He was able to attend meetings of witches from the time his mother touched his head with the staff and took him along. However, he could not eat with them, since he lacked formal initiation. To this day, a beginner can meet with witches through similar preparations without being formally initiated into their cult.

Before being born, Osa Meyi was advised to make sacrifices, since he was going to practice the art of Ifá among sorcerers: a goat for Eshu, a guinea fowl for his Ifá and a dove for his head. Orunmila had sixteen sons eager to come into the world around that time, and Osa Meyi was one of them. In such a hurry, he left out the goat for Eshu. For that reason he did not find the road to the world at the right moment. His guardian angel did not guide him either, since he had offered it nothing, and his head, for the same reason, could not protect him. He wandered aimlessly until he reached the last river of heaven, just before the world.

Beside the river waited Iyami Oshooronga, mother of all the sorcerers, who had been waiting a long time because nobody helped her cross. She too was heading for the world, but weakness kept her from using the narrow bridge over the water, called Ekoko. She asked Osa Meyi for help; he answered that the bridge would not bear the weight of both. She then suggested that he open his mouth and let her enter. He agreed and she settled in his stomach.

On the other bank, Osa Meyi asked her to come out. She refused, saying that his stomach served her very well as a home. There Osa Meyi's troubles with sorcery began. He tried to frighten her by saying she would die of hunger, but she replied that she would not go hungry as long as he had a liver, a heart and intestines, which were her favorite food. Feeling the bite in his liver, Osa Meyi understood the gravity of his situation.

Then he took out his divination instruments and asked Ifá for help. Ifá ordered him to sacrifice a goat without delay; he also needed white cloth and a bottle of oil, and Osa Meyi quickly took everything out of his divine bag. He cooked the goat's intestines, liver and heart, and then called Iyami Oshooronga to tell her that he had food.

The smell made her leave his stomach. She declared that she could not eat in view of others, and Osa Meyi set up a tent with the white cloth so that she could go in and eat in comfort. While she ate, he took off running, found a mother's womb to enter and was born.

When Iyami Oshooronga finished, she looked all around for him without finding him. She began to call him with shouts of “Osasa, Osasa, Osasa!”, a cry that sorcerers use to this day. She is still looking for him.

Since Osa Meyi began his service as a priest of Ifá, Eshu had been watching him, intending to hold him until he got his billy goat. Once a grown man, Osa Meyi married a beautiful girl who was also a witch, and he lived in a town full of witches. Eshu made him go to that place, to punish him for foolishly refusing to give him the animal.

His first notable act as a priest was to assist at a birth. On reaching the town he found that everyone was at the farms; he waited until the next day and it was still empty. There was only a woman who was about to give birth and was working. Since nobody else was there, he helped her bring the child into the world.

Afterward he felt a strong hunger, since he had not eaten a bite since the day before. While looking for food in the house, he reached a high shelf where food was stored and, without meaning to, knocked down an egg, which broke into pieces. The next thing he touched turned both his hands white, like an albino's. He was so frightened that he fled to the wild.

When they returned from the farms, the people of the town learned from the woman who had just given birth that a stranger had arrived. They looked for him at once, convinced that he would be the next victim in the sacrifice of their witchcraft cult.

Meanwhile, in the forest, a hunter came up to Osa Meyi and warned him that everyone in that town practiced witchcraft, that they were after him, and that he was in danger of death. To save himself he had to offer Eshu a billy goat without delay.

Osa Meyi took a billy goat from his divination bag and gave it to Eshu. Once the sacrifice was made, the hunter gathered leaves from the forest and rubbed them over his head. Osa Meyi wondered where the water and the pot had come from; so he understood that the hunter must be Eshu in disguise. At once his hands and his whole body recovered their normal color.

Meanwhile, the baby, who had spoken since his first day, had told how Osa Meyi came and how his hands changed color. The people believed that with that mark it would be easy to catch him. However, after the hunter's washing, his whole body was darker than before.

While Osa Meyi was trying to flee, Eshu ordered him to hide, because it had to be shown that the child was mistaken; otherwise the witches would follow him anywhere in order to kill him. He also stressed that he was already marked, and that whoever the witches single out can be defeated only with sacrifice. With that, Osa Meyi agreed to go with Eshu back to the town.

There the woman accused him of being the one who had knocked down the egg and spoiled her medicine. He denied it. They ordered him to show his hands, and they saw them of the same tone as the rest of his body, black as coal. Everyone turned against the woman and demanded that she explain how she knew the stranger was the guilty one; she confessed that her son had told her.

It became clear that she was lying, and they reproached her for repaying with foolish ingratitude the one who had helped her to a safe birth when nobody was there. The Elders of the Night at once confirmed the death sentence of the woman and her son. Osa Meyi begged in vain that they be forgiven; they answered that he should not waste words, since in their old tradition forgiveness did not exist. Mother and son were executed, because lying to the people was punished with death.

As thanks for having helped them when they were not there, they gave him a goat, a woman and a man, all witches. Back at home, he gave the goat to Ifá and gave another billy goat to Eshu, for having saved him at the moment of greatest danger. He finished with a feast to praise Orunmila.