Òyèkú Méjì · Part III: Ancestral Authority and Àró
A comparative exposition across three informants: Àwíṣẹ Awo Àgbáyé, Chief Wándé Abímbọ́lá · Chief Ayọ̀ Salami · Olóyè Ifálérè Ọdẹgbẹmí Ọdẹgbọlá II
Abọrú Abọyè.
The third of four parts on Òyèkú Méjì, turning from cosmic identity to the founding narrative: ancestral authority, veneration, and the journey to Àró.
The founding narrative from Ọdẹgbọlá II's ẹsẹ takes a different mythic axis. Alápà, king of Òde-Àpà, refuses to let the ẹbọ ìṣẹ́gun be performed when his Babaláwo Òpìtàn brings him Ifá's counsel. What the king refuses to carry, the babaláwo decides to. Òpìtàn turns to his own father, whose knowledge ends up becoming the town's deliverance.
The theme here is ancestral authority. The sacrifice the king refuses is redeemed by the babaláwo's fidelity to his father, and the community is restored not by force but by obedience to Ifá. There is no female threat in Ọdẹgbọlá II's narrative. It rather transmits the importance of daily practice and ancestor veneration. That said, my understanding is that not all ancestors are worthy of veneration.
So the gaze returns to us. There is no arriving into ancestry except through death. How do we meet it? Are we living in a way that disposes our descendants to honour us? Are we preparing to ascend into ancestry triumphantly?
❝ Are we preparing to ascend into ancestry triumphantly? ❞
Returning to Abímbọ́lá's ẹsẹ we encounter a journey through seven forests and seven wildernesses to the city of Àró, first for a marriage ceremony, then for a chief installation:
Mo dé igbó je,
Èlùjù je.
"On my way, I passed through seven forests, seven wildernesses."
It is also on the road to Àró that the dangerous old woman appears, encountered twice on the journey. She offers food; the narrator declines. She takes her oily hand and marks his cheeks. Abímbọ́lá identifies her as probably a witch. The oil marks become his mother's evidence that he ate outside.
The Ẹjìgbòmẹ̀kùn market episode sets the ẹsẹ's final sequence in motion. Death's mother is beaten in the market. The poem does not present Ikú as malevolent without cause: he is a son acting to defend his mother. This moral complexity exists so that when Death is defeated, it is not by greater brute force but by his own internal contradictions. A warning to all Awo, veiled in the allegory of the betrayal of Ikú by his own wife.
— Orímọlóyè Fáṣínà
Ọmọ awo, Ìbàdàn, Ọ̀yọ́
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Written 14 June 2026; revised 29 August 2026