Òyèkú Méjì · Part I: Women, Polygamy, Witchcraft.

A comparative exposition across three informants: Àwíṣẹ Awo Àgbáyé, Chief Wándé Abímbọ́lá · Chief Ayọ̀ Salami · Olóyè Ifálérè Ọdẹgbẹmí Ọdẹgbọlá II

Abọrú Abọyè.

The first Odù established the earth. The second spoke primarily of women and death, of the àṣẹ women carry, and how that àṣẹ manifests when the conditions around them are hostile.

It is the Odù of Ikú: death, and of the passage between the living and the ancestral worlds.

The text that follows compares the various ẹsẹ of Òyèkú Méjì through the recordings of these three distinguished babaláwos. Perfectly illustrating the vastness of the corpus.

Several entry points to the same living Odù spread into four parts for people who like to chew their food slowly. The subject merits this approach.

Part I

Women: Polygamy, Witchcraft, and the Social Production of Danger

The longest thematic block in Abímbọ́lá's ẹsẹ of Ifá Òyèkú Méjì tells a story of domestic catastrophe using arithmetic. The ẹsẹ enumerates wives:

Bí wọ́n bá dì méjì,
Wọn a dòjòwú.
Bí wọ́n bá di mẹ́ta,
Wọn a dẹ̀ta ǹtúlé.

"When there are two wives, they become rivals. When they increase to three, they destroy the home." Four wives laugh one another to scorn. Five accuse one of monopolising the husband's property. Six become wicked. Seven become witches. Eight teach the husband his evil ways. Nine declare the favourite has no occupation except to rise in the morning and wrap herself in their husband's cloth. Ten say that even when the husband stays at home, women still come in to visit him. The ẹsẹ states this counter-principle in a single line:

Ọ̀kan ṣoṣo póró lobìnrín dùn mọ lọ́wọ́ ọkọ

"It is one and only wife [sic] that brings pleasure to any man."

This is the passage that tends to produce the most friction with modern readers: the popular reaction is that this is a condemnation of polygamy. But it could also be an analysis of the structural problems that polygamy produces: rivalry, fighting, wickedness, witchcraft. This ẹsẹ of Òyèkú Méjì proposes that the women who become witches at seven are not witches because of their nature. They become witches because the conditions of their situation: competition without resolution, intimacy without trust, shared dependence on a man's favour, have pressed them toward extremes.

❝ They become witches because the conditions of their situation … have pressed them toward extremes. ❞

Ọdẹgbọlá II's ẹsẹ addresses this teaching from the point of view of the person born under this Odù by addressing the ẹ̀èwọ̀:

Ẹni tí Òyèkú méjì bá bí nínú igbódù, kò gbọdọ̀ fi inú han obìnrin rẹ̀, nítorí kí ó má báà fi ohun tí yóò pa á lára lé obìnrin rẹ̀ lọ́wọ́.

"One born under Òyèkú Méjì within the igbódù must not reveal their inner mind to women, lest the things that could destroy them be conveyed through women's hands."

— Orímọlóyè Fáṣínà
Ọmọ awo, Ìbàdàn, Ọ̀yọ́
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Written 14 June 2026; revised 29 August 2026