Òyèkú Méjì · Part II: Death and Ancestry
A comparative exposition across three informants: Àwíṣẹ Awo Àgbáyé, Chief Wándé Abímbọ́lá · Chief Ayọ̀ Salami · Olóyè Ifálérè Ọdẹgbẹmí Ọdẹgbọlá II
Abọrú Abọyè.
The second of four parts on Òyèkú Méjì. Where Part I read the Odù through the household, this part turns to its cosmic identity: death and ancestry.
Òyèkú Méjì is the Odù capable of defeating death.
The long ẹsẹ makes this plain from its first lines:
Títíítí lorí ogbó
Bùrìpé bùrìpé lomi ọkọ̀ọ́ dà
Dídà lomi ọkọ̀ọ́ dà
Omi ọkọ̀ kìí yí
"The soul of elders is everlasting. The water inside a moving canoe splashes about persistently. The water inside a canoe splashes about, it does not spill away." Water in a moving vessel shifts, sloshes, threatens constantly to overflow, and does not run out. The soul of the true elder, the one who has accumulated genuine àṣẹ and fulfilled their obligations, is inexhaustible.
Ọdẹgbọlá II confirms this. "Olódùmarè má jẹ́ kí àgbà rere ó tán lórílẹ̀": "May Olódùmarè not allow good elders to be exhausted from the earth." The Odù of Death is the Odù that defeats death.
The long ẹsẹ's first narrative episode is a divination for Oòduà, the founding ancestor who descended from heaven on iron chains:
A díá fún Oòduà atẹ̀wọ̀nrọ̀,
Wọ́n ní bó rúbọ,
Lódún yìí ní ó goróyèe baba ẹ̀;
Bí ò rúbọ,
Lódún yìí ní ó goróyèe baba ẹ̀.
"Ifá divination was performed for Oòduà, who descended from above upon iron chains. They said that if he performed sacrifice, it was in that year that he would ascend the throne of his fathers. And if he did not perform sacrifice, it was in that same year that he would ascend the throne of his fathers."
The sacrifice does not change whether Oòduà ascends the throne. What it changes, and this is my inference, is the quality and manner of arrival: the distinction between ascending in triumph through the living world and ascending in death through the ancestral one.
The Odù uses this point to emphasise the importance and function of ẹbọ: not to alter destiny, but to shape the pathway through which destiny is fulfilled.
The difference between arriving and arriving well.
❝ Not to alter destiny, but to shape the pathway through which destiny is fulfilled. ❞
— Orímọlóyè Fáṣínà
Ọmọ awo, Ìbàdàn, Ọ̀yọ́
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Written 14 June 2026; revised 29 August 2026