The Beginning of Ife, from the Yoruba Traditions of Africa

To cite this source in a sentence, please use the title at the end of the sentence in parentheses as demonstrated here (The Beginning of Ife).

Cast of Characters:

Arámfé [also called Olorun]: God of Thunder and Father of the Gods.

The Great Orisha [also called Obatala]: Creator of men. Son of Arámfé.

Odúwa or Odudúwa: King of men. Son of Arámfé.

Olokun: Goddess of the Sea.

Orni Odúm’la: The ancestor of the Ornis of Ife.

Oibo means White Man.

A white man visits Ife, the sacred city of the Yórubas and asks to hear the history of the place.

The Orni, the religious head of Yórubaland, begins, and directs the Babalawo Araba, the chief-priest of Ifa, to continue.

1. THE BEGINNING.

The Orni of Ife speaks:

Oibo, 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?

Before this World was made

There reigned Arámfé 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 Arámfé,

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

Of the great things he purposed:

“My sons, you know

Only fair things which I made for you, before

I called your spirits from the Dusk: for always

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 labored 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

When Heaven tottered, and wide rifts separated 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 Orisha Obatala cried: Can we do nothing?

What use is godhead without deeds to do?

Where yearns a helpless region for a hand

To guide it?” And Old Arámfé answered him:

“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

Beneath floods which some malign unreason heaves.

Oduwa, first-born of my sons, to you I give

The five-clawed Bird, the sand of power. 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;

Yours is the kingship, and to you all Gods

And men are subject. Wisest of my sons,

Obatala, yours is the grateful task to loose

Vague spirits 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 gladness of Heaven and the joys of labor.”

Then Oduwa said: “Happy our life has been,

And I would gladly roam these hills forever.

Your son and servant. But to your command

I yield; and in my kingship pride oversteps

Sorrow and heaviness. Yet, Lord Arámfé,

I am your first-born: wherefore do you give

The arts and wisdom to Orisha Obatala? I,

The King, will be obeyed; the hearts of men

Will turn in wonder to the God who spells

Strange benefits.” But Arámfé said, “Enough;

To each is fitting task is given. Farewell.”

Here the Beginning was: from Arámfé’s vales

Through the desert regions the exiled Gods approached

The edge of Heaven, and into blackness plunged—

A sunless void over godless water Ipng—

To seize an empire from the Dark, and win

Amidst ungoverned waves a sovereignty.

But by the roadside while Obatala slept

Oduwa came by stealth and bore away

The bag Arámfé 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

Olokun 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

Of Old Arámfé’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 waves

Of Queen Olokun on the shore, the song.

The dance of those old Gods abide, the gladness.

The life… I, too, am born of the Beginning:

For, when from the sight of men the Great Gods passed,

They left on Earth Orni Odum’la charged

To be a father to a mourning people.

To tend the shrines and utter solemn words

Inspired by Those invisible.

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 Orisha Obatala.

To cite this reading, use the following format:

Wyndham, John. Yoruba Creation Myth. Myths of Ife. E. Macdonald, 1921. Maricopa Community Colleges, open.maricopa.edu/worldmythologyvolume1godsandcreation/chapter/from-myths-of-ife-yoruba-creation-myth/.