THE CREATION OF THE WORLD
This story may be told with different protagonists. In some versions it is Obatala who descends from the heavens and creates the earth and humans, in some that task is undertaken by Oduduwa (here a male, in contrast to the previous story).
After Olorun had brought forth the many orisha, they lived together in heaven. Below them was only the sea, which was the province of the deity Olokun and her spouse. After some time, Obatala grew weary of looking down over the grey waters; he found them monotonous and depressing. He asked Olorun if he might find some way to add variety and difference to what lay below, and Olorun said that if Obatala was willing to do the work, he should proceed.
Obatala went first to Orunmila, the orisha of Ifa divination. He asked Orunmila to read the signs and tell him what would be required for the task, if it could be accomplished. Orunmila threw the palm nuts, he read the signs, he chanted the verses, and he told Obatala that he could indeed accomplish his purpose, but that he would need certain items. He would need a gold chain of great length. He would need a snail’s shell filled with sand. He should take a chicken. He should also take a palm nut and a cat.
Obatala had to spend some time collecting gold from the different orisha who lived with him in heaven, and then he took the gold to the smith, and the smith forged a chain with all the gold Obatala had collected. Eventually the chain was complete, and Obatala hung it from the edge of heaven and began climbing down as far as he could until he hung over the waters. Then he took the snail’s shell of sand and upturned it, so the sand fell down onto the surface of the water. There it stayed, and it increased in quantity and spread to cover the waters. Obatala then released the chicken, which fluttered down to the new land and immediately began scraping at the sand and casting it up this way and that to form hills and valleys. Obatala watched until the chicken had passed out of sight, still shaping the new earth, and then he came down off the chain onto the land. He planted the palm nut, which immediately grew to full size. Obatala lived beneath the palm tree with the cat. The place is now known as Ife, or Ile-Ife (old Ife).
Obatala began to make figures of clay. Olorun breathed life into them. They became people whom Obatala placed in his new land. Other orisha came down from heaven to join him in the new land. Olorun created the sun and moon to give them light.
The sun made Obatala thirsty, and he drank the fermented sap of the palm tree. The palm wine made him drunk, and some of the human figures he made at that time were deformed or incomplete. He fell asleep after a while; when he woke he saw what he had done, and regretted having brought misshapen people into the world. He swore never to drink palm wine again, and he became the protector of the children of his drunkenness.
ODUDUWA, IFE AND OYO
This version of the story makes Oduduwa the creator of the world, and is associated particularly with the city of Ife.
At the beginning, the various orisha who had come into being lived in heaven, in the realm of Olorun. Beneath them lay the sea, with nothing in between. The orisha wished to create something; with Olorun’s permission, they consulted Orunmila who instructed them to prepare a snail’s shell full of sand and to find a five-toed chicken; with these tools they would be able to create a world beneath them. Obatala and Oduduwa were selected for the task, and they set off to find the way down from heaven. But on the way they found a palm tree and tapped its sap; Obatala drank heavily and became intoxicated. He fell asleep.
Oduduwa had envied Obatala for his primary role in this process of creation. While Obatala was asleep, Oduduwa took the snail’s shell of sand and the chicken and proceeded on his way. When he had come to a place just above the waters, he cast the sand over the waters and then released the five-toed fowl. The sand spread over the water, covering it; the fowl fluttered down onto the sand and immediately began scratching away, kicking the sand up behind it into hills. The central place, where Oduduwa and the chicken first came to earth, is Ife, and Oduduwa made himself king of that town. It is because Oduduwa usurped the place intended for Obatala that the world now knows wars and other catastrophes; under Obatala, the world would have been a far more hospitable place.
Eventually, Oduduwa passed on, leaving his possessions to his six sons, of whom the youngest was Oranmiyan. He left his possessions divided into bundles of wealth: cowrie-shells, beads, cloth, foodstuffs. He also left one bundle of earth with some pieces of iron. The older sons immediately took the bundles of wealth, leaving the last (the earth and iron) to Oranmiyan. Thus Oranmiyan became the master of the earth. When the older brothers wished to exploit the land, they had to pay him tribute. When they tried to overcome him, the pieces of iron became weapons in his hands and he easily defeated them. So he became king in Ife and his elders became his subjects. Each of them became a king in his own town, but all were subordinate to Oranmiyan in Ife.
It is said that Oranmiyan was called to the city of Benin for some time, to be their king. But he returned from Benin. After some time, he left Ife. He led his armies northeast, towards the Niger, because he wished to attack the Nupe people who lived across the river. But when he came to the great water, he could find no way for his army to cross in safety: the Nupe people were ready on the other side, shooting arrows at any Yoruba warrior they saw. He realized he would have to abandon his project, but that meant that he would return to Ife in defeat. This outcome was unacceptable, and so he led his army west for a time, unsure what to do. He came to Borgu, and the king of Borgu gave him assistance: he charmed a python and released it. He told Oranmiyan to follow the python, and any place it settled for seven days would be his new home. So Oranmiyan led his army after the python until they came to the site of Oyo, and there he built his new kingdom.
There are different stories told about the succession in Ife. In Oyo, they say that when Oranmiyan was about to depart, he appointed a household slave to rule in his place; this slave was the son of a woman who had been offered as a sacrifice to Obatala but spared when it was found she was pregnant. He had grown up in the palace and had gradually taken over the responsibility for the shrines and rites. In Ife, they deny this story; they say that they have never been subject to Oyo.
Oranmiyan returned to Ife to die. A pillar of stone, the staff of Oranmiyan, still stands there. It is believed that Oranmiyan promised to return from the underworld if Ife needed his help. But once, during a festival, some drunken people called him up, and Oranmiyan emerged from the earth fully armed. In the dark, he could not recognize his people, but hearing the noise and commotion of the festival he thought the city was being attacked and began to slay all around him. When dawn came he could see the corpses lying scattered about the streets; he saw that they were unarmed, and he recognized them as the people of Ife, without scars on their cheeks. He realized that he had made war upon his own people, and so he swore he would never return from the underworld.
MOREMI
After the departure of Oranmiyan, the city of Ife was troubled by raids from the east by the Igbo. The people of Ife did not understand that the Igbo were humans, for in warfare the Igbo would dress themselves in raffia and cloth and they would cover their heads with elaborate wooden masks. The people of Ife thought they were being attacked by spirits of the wild or by orisha whom they had angered in some way. They offered prayers and sacrifices, but no response came.
A woman, Moremi, determined to help her people. She was married and had a son, but she grieved at the suffering of the people of Ife. She made a vow in the name of the river-goddess Esinmirin that she would free her people from the oppression of the attackers, and if she succeeded she would offer the river the dearest sacrifice she could make. The river orisha heard her prayer and accepted it. Then she sought a way, and she consulted Eshu. She sacrificed six goats and six bags of cowrie-shells to Eshu, and he showed her the plan and gave her protection.
Moremi’s plan was simple: she allowed herself to be captured by the Igbo during the next raid. The Igbo took their captives back to t
heir own country and then divided the spoils. Moremi was extremely beautiful; many men desired her, and since it was a time of war, they had their way with her. When they returned to their town, Moremi became a harlot at the edge of town. From the men who came to her she learned the language of the place, and then she learned their customs and their secrets – for men will let their tongues run free when boasting to a beautiful woman. She learned that the supernatural beings who accompanied their armies were only men, dressed in costumes of raffia and wood; she learned how much these maskers feared fire.
Eventually, she decided she had learned enough. She slipped away from the town one night and made her way carefully and secretly back to Ife. There she told the people what sort of attacker they faced, and she taught them the strategy of using fire against the demon-warriors. The next time the Igbo attacked, they were met with fierce opposition, for the warriors of Ife did not fear simple humans, however dressed up. The warriors of Ife also used fire, so many of the Igbo died in agony when their costumes caught fire.
Moremi then went to the river to fulfil her vow to the orisha. But none of the sacrifices she offered proved acceptable: she offered goats, sheep, oxen, but to each of these the orisha made a negative response. Moremi consulted a diviner: the dearest sacrifice she could make was her son. And so she offered up her son. To make up her loss, the people of Ife declared themselves to be her sons and daughters, and on her death she was venerated as an orisha herself, a protector of the city.
(Some people say that when Moremi came among the Igbo, she was given to the king because of her beauty, and that it was in the palace, living as the king’s concubine, that she learned the secrets of the Igbo.)
THE MIGRATION FROM THE EAST
As well as the stories which describe the creation centred at Ife, there are traditions that the Yoruba migrated from the east, the lands of the Bible and of Islam. The following story is the version of the Revd Johnson, which he interpreted to mean that the Yoruba were descended from Coptic Christians.
The Yoruba are descended from Lamurudu, who was a king of Mecca. His sons were Oduduwa, who became the founder of the Yoruba, and at least two others whose descendants moved to Gogobiri and Kukawa in Hausaland; their kinship with the Yoruba is shown by the common scarifications.
Although Islam had been revealed, Oduduwa abandoned Islam and relapsed into paganism. He and his priest Asara transformed the great mosque into a cult shrine and filled it with idols. Asara was a maker of these statues, and his son Braima was sent out to sell them on the streets. But Braima remained true in his belief in Islam, and when selling the statues he would call out ‘Who wishes to buy falsehood?’
At that time, all the men of the city went out to hunt just before the annual festival of these gods. While they were gone, Braima took an axe and destroyed the statues in the temple that had been a mosque. He left the axe hanging by its thong round the neck of the largest statue. When the men returned from their hunt with the offerings for their gods, they found that the statues had been destroyed and their shrine desecrated. They enquired and quickly learned who had done it. They brought Braima up before a tribunal of judges. ‘Did you destroy the statues in the shrine?’ they asked him.
‘Ask that great statue who performed the act,’ answered Braima.
‘Can it speak?’ asked the judges.
‘If it cannot speak, why do you worship it?’ retorted Braima. The judges easily found him guilty and he was condemned to be burned alive. A great stack of firewood was assembled, and Braima was led to the pyre. But at this point, that part of the city which had remained true to Islam revolted and rose up to preserve the life of Braima and to overthrow the idolators. There was a bloody struggle; the Muslims were victorious. In the fighting, Lamurudu was killed. Oduduwa escaped with his followers, as did the other two sons of Lamurudu who settled in Hausaland.
Oduduwa came to Ife, and there encountered the founder of the Ifa divination system. After defeating an army that had pursued them, they established their cities in that land and lived there.
THE ORIGIN OF IFA DIVINATION I
This is a story recorded before the writings of the Revd Johnson, and it refers to a version of the creation story somewhat different from the story of the descent to Ife by either Obatala or Oduduwa.
It is said that at the start of creation there were very few humans making sacrifices to the orisha and so they often felt hungry. Ifa was trying unsuccessfully to find some food when he encountered Eshu Elegba and they discussed their plight. Eshu told Ifa that if he had sixteen palm nuts he could show Ifa how to read the future, and this activity would become a reliable source of abundant offerings.
At that time, the only palm trees were owned by Orungan, the first human. Ifa went to Orungan and asked for the nuts; Orungan tried to get the fruits of the palm down, but could not reach so high. He was forced to pick up the nuts, the oily kernels, which had been thrown down by monkeys eating the fruit. Orungan’s wife Orishabi brought the nuts, tied in her waist-cloth. This is why the babalaawo invoke Orungan and Orishabi when about to begin divination, because they are the pair who first provided the nuts for divination.
THE ORIGIN OF IFA DIVINATION II
This is the story which the Revd Johnson recorded.
The man who discovered Ifa divination was Setilu. He was born blind in the land of the Nupe, and at first his parents were uncertain whether to raise him or to expose him. They decided to keep the child, and he amazed them. By the age of five, he was able to tell them who would come to visit them that day; later he began to predict greater events. In his practice, he used sixteen pebbles.
The Muslims took over the land, and expelled Setilu. He crossed the river, and after staying for a time in the city of Benin, he eventually settled at Ife. There he attracted followers and began to teach his practices. In time, palm nuts were substituted for the pebbles.
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BORGU AND THE LEGEND OF KISRA
North of the Yoruba states, south of the Songhay and west of Sokoto and the Muslim emirates of the north lay the kingdom of Borgu, now split between modern Nigeria and the Republic of Benin. The people of Borgu, speakers of Busa and Ba’tonu, preserved their independence despite challenges from all their larger neighbours, although they took something from them as well: from the Songhay certain institutions (festivals and praise-singers) associated with kingship; from the Muslims a legend of origin which defines them as opponents of Islam from the very beginning. Elements of this legend are found among other peoples as well (for instance, among the Bachama), but it is particularly associated with Borgu. The name ‘Kisra’ is the Arabic form of the Persian title Khusrow, and is particularly associated with Khusrow Anushirwan, the Sassanian ruler of Persia in the period before the life of the Prophet Muhammad.
Kisra was a king of the Persians who made war against the sons of Nuhu. Among the Hausa, it was said that he obtained the help of a jinn who lived in a stone; after Kisra had made offerings of red cloth and red animals, including a man, the jinn provided him with a great spear which enabled Kisra to take the victory. But later Kisra neglected the jinn, and the jinn passed over to the side of Nuhu’s brother Annabi, and so Kisra was defeated.
Others say that Kisra lived in Mecca at the time of the advent of the Prophet Muhammad, but that he refused the teachings of the Prophet and so fled to the west. And others say that Kisra was a Persian king who lived at the time of the Prophet and conquered Palestine and Egypt, taking the provinces from the Byzantines (or Romans) who held them. He settled in Egypt for a time, until the Byzantines rallied their forces and conquered it. Then, not wishing to take refuge in Arabia because the teachings of Muhammad were spreading there, Kisra moved to the west, taking with him the king of Napate (who may have settled in Nupeland). He passed first through Bornu and then lived for a time in towns which he founded east of the Niger river. He had three sons, Woru, Sabi and Bio.
Kisra vanished from the earth while living at Koko, in Gwandu. His three son
s then had to move west, for reasons that are not recalled. Most probably, they migrated to escape the Muslims, who had pursued Kisra because he was such a staunch refuser of the faith, and threatened his entire family. The sons came to Illo and crossed the river just ahead of their pursuers; the river was at that time a small stream, but once they had crossed it the stream immediately grew into the great watercourse that we know in modern times. The sons then founded kingdoms of their own in Nikki (in modern Benin), Bussa and Illo (in Nigeria).
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THE FON AND THE KINGDOM OF DAHOMEY
The kingdom of Dahomey developed inland from the coastal lagoons in the Bight of Benin, and its capital was Abomey. The Fon people practised agriculture and fishing; they were also a military power and supplied the Atlantic slave-trade with so many people that certain elements of their religious practices survived in the Caribbean in the form of vodun or voodoo. In the eighteenth century, Dahomey was conquered by the Yoruba of Oyo, who took from them some practices such as Ifa divination, which among the Fon is called Fa. Despite the British attempt to stop the slave-trade after 1807, it continued in Dahomey (particularly through the port of Ouidah or Whydah) towards Brazil until the end of the nineteenth century when the French conquered the territory. For nineteenth-century Europeans, Dahomey was marked by two striking images: the annual ‘customs’ in which criminals were put to death, and the king’s bodyguard of ‘Amazons’, women warriors devoted to him. These stories are retold from versions collected by American anthropologists during the 1930s.
THE CREATION
It is said that at the beginning of things, Mawu the creator travelled with Aido-Hwedo, the great serpent, and that the serpent’s movements shaped the land: as it twisted its body it moved hills and laid river-beds, and its droppings formed mountains. Mawu made the world like a calabash, one of the large gourds used to make serving bowls. First she shaped the lower bowl and then she shaped the sky as the lid. When she had finished, she found the world was sinking from the weight of the hills and the trees and other growth upon the surface, so she asked Aido-Hwedo to serve as a support, to coil himself at the base of the world and to hold it up. Aido-Hwedo coiled himself up – in the same way that women now coil a cloth to put on their heads when they are going to carry a burden – and so stabilized the world. Because Aido-Hwedo is a creature of the cold, Mawu created the sea around the world to keep the serpent cool.
African Myths of Origin Page 32