Oyekun Juani

Obatalá was suffering because in the land of Oyare Lekun there lived Awó Foré, who saw to nothing that happened and did not see to Elegba. Elegba left him and went off to the land of Badagua Ifá, where he was always attended and there was plenty of everything. One day Obatalá went out with his agogó singing his sorrow; Orunmila saw him, embraced him and, hearing of Awó Foré's troubles, said: «let us go and see him».

Orunmila took an akukó, 7 aunko and an osadie, and told Obatalá they would win, because Elegba had never eaten aunko or akukó. They came to Awó Foré, promised him the land would be great on condition that aunko and akukó were never lacking, and he rendered moforibale. Then they went to the land of Badagua Ifá singing; Elegba, drawn by the good smell of a food he had never tasted, wanted to go and find it. Orunmila kept holding him back along the road while Elegba sniffed at him, delighted. On reaching the land of Awó Foré, Elegba said: «I am staying with you in this land so that you may be great». That is why, within 7 days, a goat must be given to Elegba.

A slave, worn out with suffering, ran off into the bush and became a runaway. Sleeping under a tree, he woke to find a puppy beside him; in time they became inseparable, they hunted together and shared the catch. One day, sheltering from the rain in a cave, the dog dug up human bones; later on, the runaway came upon a woman and attacked her, and the dog finished the work by killing her.

Near a town, some men came at the runaway with machetes; he begged for mercy and the dog escaped into the bush, where it howled, missing its friend. Days later, a group of men — the runaway among them — came near the dog. The runaway, full of joy, tried to stroke it, but the dog only growled every time his hand came near. When at last it had him beside it, the dog bit him until it tore him apart and killed him, and then went off into the bush and vanished. So the prenda dog that learned to kill ends up killing its own master.

Yoko Yadi, an omo of Shangó, had two sons and a daughter who did not look like him; doubting his obiní, he took the boys and left her with the girl. The woman went through hardship and went to Orunmila, who saw this Ifá for her; in the reading Eshú came out defending her, and said he would be the girl's father and would give her all the luck she deserved.

The woman found work in the palace and took her daughter there; the king, with his own children far away, grew fond of the girl as if she were his own. Eshú spread word that the king was gravely ill; the king's sons came back, were stopped by the guard, and as the eldest came out he saw the beautiful young woman on the balcony, took an interest in her and they married. Meanwhile, Yoko Yadi's sons learned what he had done to their mother and left him. Old, half blind and in misery, Yoko Yadi came back sorry for it; he fell in a bog and they recognized him as the princess's father, but she turned him away: «you cannot be my father; when someone plants a tree, tends it, waters it and feeds it, nothing of it belongs to you». The old man withdrew and died of grief, paying for the way he had acted.