Otrupon Yeku

The ruler of a rich region came to Orunmila to learn something about his son's life. This Odù of Ifá came out of the osode, and with it the order to bring him the boy to make ebbó for him; if he did not do it, father and son had great trouble ahead of them.

The king wanted to know what trouble could fall on them, with all the power he had, and he simply left Orunmila's house.

Some time later, the son left the castle and went walking around the city. In the yard of a house he noticed a beautiful cherry tree loaded with fruit. At the back of that yard there was a man busy with his work. The boy went in, climbed the tree to reach the fruit, and did not ask anyone for permission. When he tried to come down, he could not; when he tried to speak, he could not either.

A good while went by like that. The king noticed he was gone and sent one of his servants to look for him and bring him back. The servant reached that yard, saw the boy up in the tree, and went in to get him down, also without permission: as soon as he was under the tree, he was paralyzed too.

A long time passed like that, and worry made the king go out to look for him himself. As he came near that yard he saw his son up in the tree, and his servant below, at the foot of the tree. Puzzled, he headed over there, and before going in he asked permission from the man who was still at the back.

Once inside he took a chair, sat down and called his servant; the servant answered that he could not move, neither he nor the boy, and nobody knew why. The king then called the owner of the yard, who came over to ask him what he wanted. He told him his wish was to see his son come down from that tree. The answer was that the boy had gone in and climbed the tree without permission, and that to come down from there and go back home there were fees to pay: to hand over part of his lands and property.

The king agreed. The man said some magic words and gave the boy back his speech and his movement; the boy came down from the tree and ran to his father. With that settled, the king asked why the servant still could not walk, and the other man answered that it was because no fee had been paid for him yet. The king wanted to know what those fees would be, and the man answered him with a single word: lands.

He agreed to that too. The magic words were repeated, the servant got his movement back at once and came over to the king and his son.

With the two of them at his side, the king thanked the man and got ready to leave with them. The king's surprise was that he could not stand up. He turned to the owner of the yard again to ask him why he was unable to get to his feet. The answer came straight out: "You asked me permission to come into the yard, but not to sit in my chair, so you have to pay a fee." The king asked what it was, and the man answered that to leave that chair he would have to hand over his crown. He had no choice but to hand it over.

That is how he lost his lands and his crown for not listening to Orunmila's advice: because of his son he fell into the hands of a great ozainista, and the owner of the yard ended up rich, an ozainista who lived in that town.

In the land of Boribalara, Awó Beyekún, a son of Shangó, had his house. His wife, Gueyere, was very beautiful; she prayed very nicely and her suyeres were just as nice, and he loved her madly, though it bothered him to see her standing in front of the mirror.

On the other side, Omó Legun had made Ifá for a son of his, Awó Asheri Bawa, who in turn had with Oyá a girl nobody noticed, because she did not draw attention. That was what worried the father: the daughter kept saying that no luck in love was coming to her.

One day he took her to Omó Legun, his father, hoping he would solve something for her. The instruction was to put her at the foot of Osain. For that he gave him sticks and herbs, with the charge to go all the way to where Osain lived singing the whole trip so that he would hear him: "Agogo ni legun, agogo ni le Osain ni guagua, agogo ni lekun, agogo ni le".

When he heard it, Osain asked: "Who is coming to look for me, calling me like this?" He had a mirror in his hand, and in it he could see the shadow of that woman, so he added: "I have to disfigure her; she is ugly, she has no luck, I have to make her pretty, but I am missing something that, when Shangó came, I told him I did not need, and he took it to Orunmila. Let me see what I can do."

Father and daughter arrived and Osain received them gladly. He heard from them the reason for the visit, but he warned them: "We have to go to the foot of Ifá so that Orunmila decides and gives him a thing that I badly need to make her inshé." He added that the girl had to be taken before Oyá, her mother, so that at the time Ifá did the ceremony for her, Oyá would eat next to Orunmila; and that they should make the trip with this song: "Evo evo nidira evo gulleguayo, evo evo toviseleso evo gulleguayo".

They set out with everything in a bag, except the makeup, which they did not have. Ifá heard them coming and asked: "What are these people coming to look for?" Awó Asheri Bawa answered: "I come so you will look at my daughter." From the reading Orunmila did for her came Otrupon Yeku, and his word was this: "I am glad you came together with Oyá, because we have to feed her together with Orunmila and the great secret, and hand you what she is missing: the makeup, the eyebrow pencil, the lipstick."

Once the ceremony for Orunmila and for Oyá was done with Ifá, the great secret of Oyá warned him that something was still missing: to finish straightening out the girl's situation, they had to go back to the foot of Osain.

There Osain took a fresh fish, passed it over her face, fed the inshé with the blood, took out its eyes and put them inside along with a bit of scale. Then he bathed her with pomegranate, botón de oro, orozús, siempreviva, paraíso, párami leaves, honey and pumpkin juice. In the middle of the bath he sent for Oyá to wash her face; right away, with her eyes closed, he began to paint her. When he finished he held a mirror up to her, and the girl found herself very pretty; Oyá and Awó Asheri Bawa found her so lovely that they could not contain their joy. Osain sent her off with one charge: "You have to walk around the town."

Back in her land she caused admiration in everyone who looked at her, and there was nothing in the town more attractive than she was. Awó Beyekún passed by there, and seeing her so lovely he was taken with her, and she with him. She set him a condition: "I accept you, but you have to come to my house so I can speak with my secret." He thought about it; being in love won out, and he answered: "Yes, tomorrow I will go there."

She got her inshé ready and gave it a chicken. Awó Beyekún arrived, saw her and was amazed, more in love than ever. Then she spoke to him plainly: "I know you have your wife, but if you want something with me, you have to come here, and I will leave everything and go from my father and my family to wherever you want." Awó Beyekún's answer was: "Give me time." She insisted: "Find me another place for us to go, to another land." He thought it was impossible, though he remembered that a short distance away there was a very pretty house. He went out with her, showed it to her, and from then on they lived together. She was a woman full of vice, and he fell in love in such a way that his own house was left abandoned.

One day, sitting at the edge of a thicket, a voice came to him with this warning: "Shake yourself off, give a rooster to Shangó and look at yourself with your Ifá." He did not listen to the warning, he stayed enslaved, and every visit to his house ended with some reproach to Gueyere, his wife.

She noticed all of that and decided: "I am going where Ifá is to see what he tells me." Before Ifá, Oyekun Batuto came out, and there they explained to her what she had to do. The ebbó took: cochineal, sweet potato vine, pumpkin, cocoa flower and a chicken. Orunmila did it for her and told her to rub that on her face; that was how Awó Beyekún stayed with her.

The people of the land of Imale traded in peanuts: that was what they harvested, and from that came just enough to live on. Over time, though, that whole town went downhill, because it had stopped attending to Orishaoko and Shangó, the patrons of that trade and the saints it used to worship.

The two of them came to an agreement and joined together to teach those people of such bad conduct a lesson. From then on, as soon as the crop was ready, thunder fell on the peanut field and wiped out the whole planting; in other seasons the plant gave nothing, or what they managed to gather was not enough. Every day they were worse off: some fell sick and others even died.

In that state they decided to go to Orunmila's house, and seeing this Ifá he marked them ebbó with a cleaning, plus praying to Orishaoko and Shangó and feeding them, so they could hold on above all to Shangó. The farmers did it for themselves and for their families, and took food and fruit to Shangó and Orishaoko. That is how they got forgiveness: that year the harvest was bigger than the years before, and all the people got out of the great tight spot they were in.

To iban Eshu.