The Life of Oyeku Iwori
The continuous biography of this odù's own spiritual evolution — celestial works, then earthly works — told as one unfolding life. Click any title to read it.
Hair and Flesh
In Oyeku Iwori is born Inso (the hair), Iñi (the teeth), and Keta Aboñu (the stomach). The signo speaks of the Pelo and the Pela — the hair and the pela (the haircut, the loss of hair, the disgrace). Que los hombres tuvieran dientes en la boca, Barba y Bigotes, Pelos en la Nariz y en el Ano — that men have teeth in the mouth, beard and mustache, hair in the nose and the anus — all of these vellosities are born here. The consultando's relationship to his own hair (loss, growth, dyeing, ritual cutting) is therefore charged in this Ifá; he should not lose hair to nerves and should not let another cut his hair without the proper precaution.
The Patakín Corpus — 1 to 8
Presented in strict numerical order as in the source Tratado. Click any title to read it.
01Where Shangó Sent the Eggun to the Town
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Shangó was passing through a town and saw a family with a sick child. As Shangó went by the door of the house, he heard it said: "If my little son is saved, I will give a rooster to Shangó." Shangó did not notice which house it was, and said: "I am staying in this town, where they are going to feed me." But the days passed and no one fed Shangó. So he called Iku and told him it was necessary for him to go into the town, because everyone lived very well and there were always parties, and people threw away their glasses of wine and their food, and fought among themselves because they blamed each other for the situation they were in. They came to stabbing one another, and there was a tremendous mortality in the town, until one man went to see himself at Orunmila's feet, and Orunmila told him to give a rooster to Shangó. The man did so, and everything went well for him.
Another neighbor, on hearing of this, asked him what he had done that his family was well. He did what his neighbor had done, and he prospered too. But the individual who had promised the rooster to Shangó went to see him; then Shangó ordered him to make ebbo, and to go by one road and not return by the same one. Shangó prepared a pit for him where he had to pass, and as he was coming back he fell into the pit. And Shangó said to him: "You had to pay me for this, since you owed it to me."
[Translator's note: the source does not make clear whom "him" refers to in "went to see him"; the rendering stays literal.]
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