Myths of Ífè

A white man visits Ífè, the sacred city of the Yórubas, and asks to hear the history of the place. The Órní, the religious head of Yórubaland, begins, and directs the Babaláwo Arába, the chief-priest of Ífa to continue. I. THE BEGINNING. The Órní of Ífè speaks: Oíbo, you have asked to hear our lore, The legends of the World's young hours—and where Could truth in greater surety have its home Than in the precincts of the shrines of Those Who made the World, and in the mouths of priests To whom their doings have been handed down From sire to son? Arámfè reigns in Heaven;      Before this World was made There reigned Arámfè in the realm of Heaven Amidst his sons. Old were the hills around him; The Sun had shone upon his vines and cornfields Since time past reckoning. Old was Arámfè, The father of the Gods: his youth had been The youth of Heaven. . . Once when the King reclined Upon the dais, and his sons lay prostrate In veneration at his feet, he spoke tells his sons of the creation of Heaven; Of the great things he purposed:      "My sons, you know But fair things which I made for you, before I called your spirits from the Dusk: for always p. 14 Your eyes have watched the shadows and the wind On waving corn, and I have given you The dances and the chorus of the night— An age of mirth and sunrise (the wine of Heaven) Is your existence. You have not even heard Of the grey hour when my young eyes first opened To gaze upon a herbless Mass, unshaped And unadorned. But I knew well the heart Of Him-Who-Speaks-Not, the far-felt Purpose that gave Me birth; I laboured and the grim years passed: Streams flowed along their sunny beds; I set The stars above me, and the hills about; I fostered budding trees, and taught the birds Their song—the unshapely I had formed to beauty, And as the ages came I loved to make The beautiful more fair. . . All went not well: A noble animal my mind conceived Emerged in loathsome form to prey upon My gentle creatures; a river, born to bask In sunlit channels and mirror the steep hills, Tore down its banks and ravaged field and plain; While cataract and jagged precipice, Now grand with years, remind me of dread days p. 15 When Heaven tottered, and wide rifts sundered my young Fair hills, and all seemed lost. Yet—I prevailed. Think, now, if the accomplished whole be Heaven, How wonderful the anxious years of slow And hazardous achievement—a destiny For Gods. But yours it has not been to lead Creation by the cliff's-edge way from Mass To Paradise." He paused on the remembrance, And Great Orísha cried: "Can we do naught? What use in godhead without deeds to do? Where yearns a helpless region for a hand To guide it?" And Old Arámfè answered him: sends them to make the World. "My son, your day approaches. Far-off, the haze Rests always on the outer waste which skirts Our realm; beyond, a nerveless Mass lies cold 'Neath floods which some malign unreason heaves. Odúwa, first-born of my sons, to you I give The five-clawed Bird, the sand of power.1 Go now, Call a despairing land to smiling life Above the jealous sea, and found sure homesteads For a new race whose destiny is not The eternal life of Gods. You are their judge; p. 16 Yours is the kingship, and to you all Gods And men are subject. Wisest of my sons, Orísha, yours is the grateful task to loose Vague spirits1 waiting for the Dawn—to make The race that shall be; and to you I give This bag of Wisdom's guarded lore and arts For Man's well-being and advancement. And you, My younger sons, the chorus and the dance, The voice of worship and the crafts are yours To teach—that the new thankful race may know The mirth of Heaven and the joys of labour." Then Odúwa said: "Happy our life has been, And I would gladly roam these hills for ever, Your son and servant. But to your command I yield; and in my kingship pride o'ersteps Sorrow and heaviness. Yet, Lord Arámfè, I am your first-born: wherefore do you give The arts and wisdom to Orísha? I, The King, will be obeyed; the hearts of men Will turn in wonder to the God who spells Strange benefits." But Arámfè said "Enough; To each is fitting task is given. Farewell." The Gods leave Heaven. p. 17 Here the Beginning was: from Arámfè's vales Through the desert regions the exiled Gods approached The edge of Heaven, and into blackness plunged— A sunless void o'er godless water lying—1 To seize an empire from the Dark, and win Amidst ungoverned waves a sovereignty.   Odúwa steals the bag and causes War on Earth. But by the roadside while Orísha slept Odúwa came by stealth and bore away The bag Arámfè gave. Thus was the will Of God undone: for thus with the charmed sand Cast wide on the unmastered sea, his sons Called forth a World of envy and of war. Of Man's Creation, and of the restraint Olókun2 placed upon the chafing sea, Of the unconscious years which passed in darkness Till dazzling sunshine touched the unused eyes Of men, of War and magic—my priest shall tell you, And all the Great Ones did before the day They vanished to return to the calm hills Life in Ífè is as it was in the time of the Gods p. 18 Of Old Arámfè's realm . . . They went away; But still with us their altars and their priests Remain, and from their shrines the hidden Gods Peer forth with joy to watch the dance they taught, And hear each night their chorus with the drum: For changeless here the early World endures In this first stronghold of humanity, And, constant as the buffets of the waves Of Queen Olókun on the shore, the song, The dance of those old Gods abide, the mirth, The life . . . I, too, am born of the Beginning: Odúm’la speaks for the Gods; For, when from the sight of men the Great Gods passed, They left on Earth Órní Odúm’la1 charged To be a father to a mourning people, To tend the shrines and utter solemn words Inspired by Those invisible. And when Odúm’la's time had come to yield the crown, To wait upon the River's brink,2 and cross To Old Arámfè—Ífa,3 in his wisdom, and lives for ever in the person of the Órní. p. 19 Proclaimed that son with whom Odúm’la's soul Abode. Thus has it ever been; and now With me that Being is—about, within— And on our sacred days these lips pronounce The words of Odudúwa and Orísha.