Otura Roso

In a town everyone worked the land. One of them got involved with married women and wanted to live with everyone's wives. The Devil (Olose) lived in the same town.

Once, that man had relations with the Devil's wife. On learning of it, the Devil resolved to bring him down and attacked him with great caution, but he failed, because Olofin covered that man with his protection.

Without any power, the Devil sought out Arun (Sickness) and asked him to make that man ill. Arun assured him it could be taken as done and went out to find him, but he too failed to harm him.

So as not to look bad before the Devil, Arun went before Olofin and wanted to know why he could not make ill a man who caused harm. Olofin answered that the man was under his shelter and that this was already decided, since his word was law.

Arun returned to the Devil and explained that he could do nothing, since Olofin protected the man. The Devil remarked that there must be a reason why neither of them could defeat him, and decided to bring him down using the very thing the man practiced.

At the entrance of a certain town a rooster lived on a moruro pole and guarded the place. When the rooster died, the awó of the town did an osode to learn what was happening, carry out the necessary works and put a new rooster in that post.

A man also lived there who collected spoiled food in the market in order to sell it again. His situation was bad and his business was not moving forward, so he consulted the same awó. In the osode Otura Roso came out. The awó explained that his enemies were doing witchcraft against him and that all his problems and delays came from that, and he indicated an ebbó using the witchcraft he found near his house.

The first thing he found was a live rooster, thrown inside his yard. He took it to the awó, who performed the ebbó. When it was finished, the awó asked him to bury in the yard a moruro pole as tall as the man himself and to leave the rooster living on it.

After the ebbó, customers began to ask for the seller of spoiled goods, and the other vendors in the market sent them to the man with the rooster. There were so many buyers that he improved and gave up collecting spoiled food. Every day, at four in the morning, the rooster woke him; it was the messenger of Shangó and Oduduwa. Then he went to the market, bought goods in bulk and sold them afterward in small portions, something nobody did there. The business prospered until it put him in contact with the great merchants of those lands, and he earned a lot of money.

Later he went back to the awó, who told him that a ceremony was still missing for the moruro pole and the rooster. He asked him to bring scraps from the market, which the man placed at the foot of the pole; there he offered the rooster and prayed.

Then the awó made Ifá for him and Otura Roso came out again. The awó told him that he must repeat this from time to time to keep his luck, and that he must take rooster blood to every corner of his house.

In this way Otura Roso finished securing his luck in the world.

At the beginning of the world, Orunmila and Olofin sent Oriwa Awó to the land of Oniroso to lead it. He had nothing to sustain him, and when he noticed that he could not answer either to Olofin or to Orunmila, he lost his calm. He began to call on Olofin with a song, and he sang it every day until Olofin heard him. Then Olofin sent for Osun and ordered him: “You will go to Oniroso and be called Ika Roso. Your task will be to sustain all the children that land has.”

Osun did not seem entirely happy. He wanted to know when he should leave, and Olofin answered: “After 16 days.” Osun asked that, if he needed anything more, Olofin send it to him. Olofin was silent for a moment and then gave him four positions, which are the four points of the world. He was to place them at the corners of the Earth and live in the middle of them. Before that, on arriving, he had to present himself to Oriwa Awó and receive his ashé.

Osun set out on the journey singing a song. Oriwa Awó received him very gladly, and both knelt. Oriwa Awó handed the world over to him, said he was going to where Olofin was, and left at once. Osun began to rule Oniroso with great difficulties, although the situation had improved a little, and he said a prayer.

Ejiogbe then appeared bringing a white rooster and gave it to him: “Here is your great fulfillment. Carry it on your head, meant for the world.” He prayed for him, and Osun knelt and asked for Olofin’s blessing. Ejiogbe warned him: “Something is still missing, and it will come at the moment you need it: driving death away. For that you will change form.”

After some time, Ikú, death, refused to leave Oniroso, and Osun, desperate, shut himself in his house. Then he went out, found Ika Roso, told him his situation and kept walking with a song. There Oshún appeared and hung 16 bells on him, called shaguro. She paid him moforibale and ran off, singing that the bells scared Ikú away. On hearing her, death fled and left the place.

But Osun still lacked something. He had nowhere to eat, he felt hungry and burst into tears. Olofin was watching him and confirmed that, indeed, the main thing was missing: the great authority. It was then that Otura Roso brought him a plate, with which Osun was confirmed and secure, because that plate was the board of Ifá.

Later Otura Roso, Iroso Meyi, Ika Roso, Ejiogbe and Iroso Ka gathered to consecrate him. Osun sang, bowed down and thanked Ifá and Olofin.

There Osun’s plate came to be, which reproduces Orunmila’s board and its four cardinal points. Osun’s route through the odus was this: he was born in Iroso Meyi, because the world needed him and Olofin ordained it; he moved on to Ika Roso because of a matter of Oshún, going after her power; Iroso Ka lent him a rooster that would be his alert and his watchman; then he came to Iroso Bara, where he received the strength of the four pillars of the world; and he ended his road in Otura Roso, where Orunmila put the board in his hands. Finally, Osun went to dance at Irete Lazo.