The Life of Iwori Ika
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.
PROTAGONISTS INDEX — Orishas, Irunmoles, Divine Personages, Mortal Persons, Messengers, Animals & Plants
Narrative actors only. Ritual destinations and offering ingredients named in the ebbó lists are not indexed as protagonists. Ordinary humans are listed as Mortal Persons, not as divine.
Orunmila and Olofin are recurring divine presences in this corpus; the links below point to their defining appearances in this odu.
Orishas & Irunmoles
- Orunmila — warns the goddaughter and marks her rogación before her betrayal and death (Story 1); is falsely accused of living with Olokun's wife, performs osode, and is vindicated (Story 3).
- Olokun — hears the slander, complains to Olofin, and retreats into the sea when the scattered ebbó frightens him (Story 3).
Divine Personages
- Olofin — receives Olokun's complaint and sends his messenger to learn whether the report is true (Story 3).
Mortal Persons
- The Husband — the sterile man whose wife conceives by his friend; he kills her and is imprisoned (Story 1).
- The Wife — the husband's wife, a goddaughter of Orunmila, who had been warned by Orunmila against betrayal, falls in love with the friend, conceives, and is killed (Story 1).
- The Friend — the husband's coworker and betrayer, who visits the imprisoned husband and confesses his betrayal (Story 1).
- The Friend’s Wife — secretly visits the imprisoned husband and plans to leave her own husband to live with him; she is killed after her husband discovers the relationship (Story 1).
- The Peaceful Travelers — the group from the peaceful town, with their chief, who must cross the warrior town and release the messenger doves (Story 2).
- The Warrior Army Chief — the commander who encircles the travelers and lets them pass after seeing the dove (Story 2).
- The Scorned Woman — the woman whose love Orunmila does not return and who spreads the slander about Olokun's wife (Story 3).
Messengers
- Olofin's Messenger — the mandadero who carries Orunmila's ebbó package to Olofin; the source has him enter the air, and an eagle takes the package from him. His nature is not specified (Story 3).
Animals
- The Messenger Doves — the caged doves released to signal whether the encirclement is broken and to carry word home (Story 2).
- The Eagle — the bird that seizes Orunmila's ebbó package in flight; the package then opens and its ingredients scatter, and the noise frightens Olokun into the sea (Story 3).
Plants
- None. The olive bush in Story 2 is a perch, not a narrative actor.
The Patakín Corpus — 1 to 3
Presented in strict numerical order as in the source Tratado. Click any title to read it.
01The Path of Mutual Marital Infidelity
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EBBÓ: one AKUKO, OSIADIE OKAN, EYELE MEYI FUN FUN, MALAGUIDI MEYI of both sexes, ADA AKOFA, leftover food, ASHO FUN FUN and DUN DUN, GBOGBO EWE, EKU, EYA, EPO, AWADO, ATITAN ILE, ATITAN for the work, OBI, ITANA, OÑI, ORI, OPOLOPO OWO.
DISTRIBUTION: AKUKO with its ingredients for ESHU; EYELE MEYI FUN FUN for KOFIBORI; OSIADIE with its ingredients for OPARALDO.
PATAKÍN:
There were two friends who worked together in the countryside, and as is logical they lived in different houses, each with his wife. One of these men could not have children because he was sterile, something his wife did not know.
One day this man's wife went to see her husband in the countryside where he worked, and there she met her husband's friend. She fell in love with him, and because of this she began to visit that place frequently. On one of those visits she came to be intimate with that man and became pregnant.
Her husband, having learned of the matter and knowing that he could not father children and that therefore she had betrayed him, killed her.
The murdered woman, who was a goddaughter of Orunmila, had been warned by him to be careful not to betray, because she could be killed; because of this Orunmila had marked rogación for her.
When she had received Ikofá, this Ifá had been marked for her; but she abandoned herself and did nothing.
The killer was imprisoned, and after some years his friend went to visit him in prison and asked his forgiveness for having betrayed him with his wife. The prisoner forgave him and said: "This time I forgive you, for I will soon leave here and I am going to marry a woman whom I met when we worked together. She has treated me very well, and behind her husband's back, whenever she has had time, she has come to visit me, and she is determined to leave her husband."
The two friends talked, and after a short while they returned to the subject of that woman. The visitor asked him her name; the prisoner gave it, and the man then understood that it was the same name as his wife's, so he skillfully asked him for the address of that woman.
The prisoner gave him the address, and it was the same as his own house. The man therefore understood his wife's betrayal; he said nothing and immediately changed the direction of the conversation, so that the prisoner would suspect nothing, and withdrew from there very happy and content.
This man kept watch and verified everything the prisoner had told him in relation to his wife. When they released the prisoner, he came to an agreement with the woman, and she spoke with her husband and told him that she no longer wished to live with him and that she was going to live alone.
Since this woman was not sincere and did not tell him the truth, when the former prisoner went to look for her, the husband came out to meet him and killed him; afterward he killed his wife, and later he died in prison from dejection and stomach disorders.
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