3.8 Owonrin-Okanran

3.8 Iwori-Okanran

So I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I got to meet the Ogunsua (King) of Modakeke, but the bad news was the way that I met him. I sent the Araba some money for a new year’s Ifa festival that he had to put on as the highest ranking Babalawo in the town and he told me he used it to buy several crates of drinks for all of the other Babalawo. The problem was that another person in the neighborhood who also sells drinks got angry that he didn’t spend all the money at his shop. As a result he told this one guy is the landlord of some property where the Araba and his friend had a shop that he had made some magic charms to stop the landlord from building anything there. So after a whole lot of trouble, it became clear that the Araba had done no such thing, so we all had to go to the palace of the Ogunsua and tell him what had happened. The whole thing got resolved pretty easily, but the Araba’s friend, a tailor and a really nice guy, had to find a new place to set up shop.

When I heard all about the trouble I told the Araba that Iwori-Okanran was the most appropriate Odu for the situation, and he laughed pretty hard and said, “Very good!” Iwori Okanran warns that the person will be involved in some kind of trial and should beware of people (especially people (s)he thinks are friends) because they will come into some sort of conflict. The Araba handled it pretty well though, he said it made no sense to have done something like that, and insisted that his good name could get him through the lie, and he was right! At any rate, we’ll probably go back so I can introduce myself to the king under better circumstances.

In other news, I’m about halfway through all of the 256 Odu Ifa. I think I’m somewhere around 125, but I forget the exact number. It’s gone by really quickly, and I think I’ve really started to get the hang of what a Babalawo does. I always know exactly when to get the Araba’s divining chain before he asks me, I’ve gotten used to all the different tools he uses in making medicines, where to get them in town, and I even recognize the Odu when he cast his chain about as fast as he does. A few days ago was the first time I think I completely understood everything that happened when a client came and it was pretty cool.

This guy came from another town, and was talking about how his sister was having trouble having children. Apparently she had tried making some sacrifices to her ori (best translated as destiny or personal god), but she still had not had any success. The Araba cast Ifa for him, and I recognized the Odu that came up. It was Idin-Osa which I like to call the Odu for the conundrum of the modern woman. It says that there is a woman who cannot have children and is doing very well in business. It also says that God will not give her children until she takes it easy with her workload. She works too late, and is possibly a bit too concerned with business, all of which will have to change for her to have a successful family. To make a long story short, the guy started telling us all about how his sister was pretty rich, but was stingy, I think because she wanted to use every last cent to make more money. We’ll have to see if she comes to make a sacrifice or not.

Another interesting thing that happened was that last Sunday I think, the Araba cast the figure Owonrin-Iwori also called Owonrin-Were (were means crazy person). This was really cool because I got to learn all about it this past week, or the week before, I forget. At any rate, I helped the Araba make the medicine for the person who indeed had a mental illness of some kind, and we took it over to her. I have to admit that she was a bit scary looking, and she wouldn’t take the medicine the first day, so we came back on another day and snuck it into some food that we had bought for her. The Araba told me that the way it worked was that the medicine would make her fall into a deep sleep, and while she was sleeping it would clear the illness out of her head. She didn’t want us to stick around long enough to see her pass out, but after she had taken a bit of the food, she started nodding her head. I’m going to ask if we can go back on Monday and see how she’s doing.

I’ve been trying pretty hard to catch up in memorizing the meanings of all of the different Odu, and I’m almost a quarter of the way there now, and whenever I get bored here (especially when the power goes out) it’s kind of fun to cast my Opele and think about the different stories associated with each Odu. I hope I’ll be able to fit all of them in my head, because sometimes after I finish studying them, it literally does feel like it’s full and nothing else will go in. One last interesting thing that has happened to me is that the second person in a few months has literally chased me down assuming that I am a pastor and harassed me about doing something for him. The most recent guy said he didn’t know what he wanted me to do for him, but there was something that I had to do. I think I’ll pray for him, but maybe next time that happens I’ll just tell the guy I’m a Babalawo and see if that solves the problem!