The Life of Odi Otura
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.
Odu Invocation and Source Provenance
- Source title: 073 Odi Otura — Tratado fuente
- Native source: Google Drive document
- Citation printed in the source: Tratado Enciclopédico de Ifá
- Attribution: The translation is based on the native Google Drive document named above. Source spellings, name variants, quantities, prayers, and unresolved pronouns are retained.
The Patakín Corpus — 1 to 3
Presented in strict numerical order as in the source Tratado. Click any title to read it.
01How Obatalá Was Cured
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Source title: De como Obatalá se curo. [The printed title lacks the accent on curo; it is read as curó, “was cured.”]
Patakin:
In this Ifá Obatalá was gravely ill because he had not made rogation to his leri as he had been commanded. Obatalá had two servants: one was bad, who wished that he would die so as to take possession of his sizable fortune; and the other was good and went at once to Orúnmila's house, and this sign came out for him, where Orúnmila told him, “You come for a person who is ill from having disobeyed,” and he ordered him to make a cleaning with one akuko, eyele meyi, one hundred small stones, aikordie, marfil, eko fifo, atare, and that he should take the ebbó to the bush and [to] the elegbara there, who was named farun, so that this Elegbá — who is the one who covers the sight of the Elegbá of the house — would let him see. [The source's sentence is syntactically incomplete: “y que debería llevar el ebbó al monte y que el elegbara de allí que se llamaba farun para que este Elegbá…” No verb is given for what is to be done with the elegbara; the purpose clause is preserved without supplying one.]
Everything was done as Orúnmila had ordered and indicated, and on taking the ebbó, farun showed him a climbing plant — that is, seso vegetal — and [said] that with that he should make rogation to his leri. Thus Obatalá was cured.
Nota: By this letter there is disobedience, besides taking care of Elegbá for what one/he has or wants, because the awo cannot have his sight covered. [“por lo que tiene o quiere” is rendered literally with its subject left unspecified: the source does not establish Elegbá — or any other referent — as the one who has or wants. Nor does it say whether the phrase attaches to the disobedience or to the care of Elegbá.]
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