VII Obara Mèji
Obàrà, What Did You Sell That Made You So Rich?
Ordinary Pumpkin
The vulture was bald not because of fear of razor;
Python, Ifá priest of Agbàalę;
The blacksmith does not want war to be eliminated from the face of the earth.
Ifá divination was performed for Eji Obàrà,
The very least of them all,
On the day they were going
To perform divination in the household of Oløfin.
These four people always perform Ifa divinaition
For Olofin every nine days
Whenever they came,
Olofin usually gave them food and drinks.
But, one day,
Olofin took four pumpkins,
And opened them up.
He poured money inside one of them.
He poured okun and iyun beads inside another one.
He put láàràngúnkàn, the cloth of kings inside the third one,
And he put other valuable things of the city of Ife inside the fourth.
After he had finished his operation,
Eşù rubbed his hands on the marks
Created by knife on the surface of the pumpkins,
And the marks disappeared.
When Olofin and his friends arrived,
Olofin did not give then food as he used to do.
After they had sat down for a long time,
Olofin gave each of them a pumpkin.
The other three wondered what they would
Use the pumpkins for.
They said "Obarà, why don't you gather all of them?"
That was how all of them
Pushed the pumpkins to Obara.
When he got home,
He gave the pumpkins to his wife,
And asked her to cook them.
But his wife also said,
“What are we going to do with pumpkins?”
She too rejected the pumpkins and left them for Obara.
When hunger did not allow Obara to rest,
He went t the kitchen,
And put a pot on fire.
When he sliced one of the pumpkins,
Money poured out in great quantity.
When he sliced the other three,
He found all the valuable things which Olofin had kept inside them.
That was how Obara became a rich man.
Before the end of another period of nine days,
When they were due to go to the house of Olofin again,
He had started to build a house,
And he married a new wife.
He bought a black horse,
And he bought a red horse as well.
Obara became a famous man all over the world.
He started to dance,
He started to rejoice.
Gongs were sounded at Ipóró
Aràn drum was beaten at Ikijà
Drumsticks were ceaselessly applied to different kinds of drums
in the city of Işerimogbe.
Obàrà started to praise his Ifá priests,
And his Ifá priests praised Ifá.
He opened his mouth a little,
The song of Ifa entered therin.
He said that was exactly how his Ifa priests
Employed their good voices in praise of Ifa.
“The vulture was bald not because of fear of razor;
Python, Ifa priest of Agbàale;
The blacksmith does not want war to be eliminated from the face of the earth.
Ifa divination was performed for Eji Ibar
The very least of them all,
On the day they were going
To perform divination in the house of Olofin
They could no longer push Obara to the back of the seat.
He was in the fore front. Eji Obbàrà, take a black horse.
Eji Obàrà, take a red horse.
Ordinary pumpkin.
Eji Obarà, what did you sell
That made you so rich?
Ordinary pumpkin."
VII Qbàrà Méji
(a)
Agbàale. A personal name.
2. The blacksmith does not want war to be eliminated on earth because it will affect his
industry of making war implements such as spears, arrows and cutlasses. Even in
modern times, we know that the manufacturers of war
armaments do not always want to see an end to war which yields profits to them
through the manufacture of war planes, guns, tanks, etc.
3. Eji Obarà. The seventh of the sixteen principal Odù of Ifá. He was believed to be a very
poor person before he suddenly became very rich and famous.
4. Olófin. Another name for Odùduwà, the great ancestor of the Yoruba people.
5. The odd numbers three, five, seven, nine and seventeen are very important to the
Yoruba. Most markets are held every fifth, ninth, or seventeenth day while in mythology
most of the important events take place
the third or seventh day.
on
6. The Yoruba eat pumpkin but it is usually regarded as a poor man’s food.
7. Okun and iyùn are costly beads used by chiefs and women of high social status.
8. Láàràngúnkàn. This cloth is believed to be a very costly one used only by kings.
9. İpóró. An Egbá village. The gongs mentioned here are used by Ifa priests as
instruments of a special type of music characteristic of the Ifa cult.
10. Ikijà. Another Egbá village. Åràn is also an important Ifá drum.
11. İşerimogbe. An ancient town not too far away from Lagos.
