Myths of Ife · 6 of 9

IV. The Sacrifice of Mórimi

Arába continues:

Insight

Mórimi is one of the most beloved figures in Yoruba religious memory, and the festival commemorating her — Edi — is still observed in Ile-Ife in early November. She is honored as the wife of Obálufon who saved Ife from the invading forces by an act of personal sacrifice. Wyndham notes that her priest in 1921 told him she sacrificed her son Yésu — and remarks, with a colonial-officer’s wryness, that an early Christian missionary may have read Mary into Mórimi. The judgment cuts both directions: it is also possible that the Yésu naming entered the tradition under missionary contact and that Arába’s older version (which Wyndham follows in the verse — sacrifice of the daughter Adétoún) is the deeper layer. Either way the story is treated in Yoruba practice as the founding act of Ife’s salvation. The Edi festival reenacts it: men dressed in hay (the grass-clad invaders of Wyndham’s chapter VII) parade the streets and are pursued with fire. Read what follows knowing it is not a fable but a sacred memory still danced.

Oíbo I have told you of the days

When Odudúwa and Orísha fought;

But of the times of peace our annals hold

Strange legends also. . . Now in the age when mirth

And Odudúwa reigned, grief ever-growing

Befell Great Mórimi, the wife of skilled Mórimi has no sons, Obálufon—for while his lesser wives

Proudly bore many sons unto their lord,

A daughter only, young Adétoún,

Was granted to his queen. And as the years

Lagged by, a strangeness which he always seemed

To keep in hiding chequered the fair day

With doubtings, and waylaid her in the paths

Of her fond nightly dreams. Once with the Spring,

She saw the clustered tree-tops breaking into leaf

Copper and red and every green, and she

Remembered how beneath the new year’s buds

It was ordained by Peregún ’Gbo, lord

Of uninhabitable woods that Life

Should spring from Forest, and Life from Life,—till all

The Woods were gladdened with the voice of beasts

And birds—and thus she reasoned: “Is it not told

How Peregún ’Gbo spoke, and from the womb

Of Forest leaped the sloth that laughs by night?

How ’mid the boughs the sloth brought forth the ape

That bore the leopard? And did not Peregún

Watch o’er the birth of young Orúnmila,

And ever, when the morrow’s sorrowing dawn

Must yield up to the leaguing fiends the child’s

Fair life, did not the watchful God send down

His messenger to stay the grasping hand

Of Death? Thus do the Gods; and surely one

Will give me sons. Ah! whom must I appease?” She consults Ífa: Quick with new hope Great Mórimi sought out

A priest of Ífa in his court yard dim,

Where from each beam and smoke-grimed pillar hung

The charms the wise man set to guard his home,

His wives and children from the ills contrived

By the bad spirits. To her gift she whispered,

And laid it on Okpéllè; and the priest

Seizing the charm of Ífa said: “Okpéllè,

To you the woe of Mórimi is known;

You only can reveal its secret cause,

Its unknown cure!” Then he laid down the charm

And Óffun Kánran stood before them. The face

Of Ífa’s priest was troubled, and he said: Who tells her to sacrifice her daughter. “Mórimi, this is the message of my lord

Ífa: a son, nay many sons, you long for.

You have a daughter, and your husband’s love

Was yours. The Gods would give you many sons,

But in your path stands Éshu, the Undoer,

Whose shrine calls out for blood, for sacrifice:

Adétoún.” Without hope Mórimi

Went forth, and loathing of the ways of the Gods

Possessed her—while indignation fed her love

Of her one child. . . .

The months passed by: Moons came,

And in the smiles of happier wives she read

A mockery; Moons faded from the sky,

And grief and her Adétoún remained

Companions of her hours. At last she cried:

“But sons l asked for; I will go again

And pray for sons and my Adétoún.

The last word is not yet. Olókun’s tide

Has ebbed: will it not flow again?”

Yet hope She consults Ífa again. Went not with Mórimi to the dark court

Of Ífa’s priest; and when a torch disclosed

The self-same bode of sorrow in the dusk—

To her drear home Great Mórimi fled back

In terror of the deed which love commanded,

And love condemned. . . . Silently in the night Édi advises her to act on Ífa’s message. Came Édi, the Perverter, the smooth of tongue,

Who with his guileful reasoning compels

To conscious sin: “The forms of messengers

Reveal the thoughts of Ífa, and the ears

Of Ífa, the God-Messenger, have heard

The far-off, thundrous voice. Would you hold back?

Is not the birth of Nations the first law

Arámfè gave? Can any wife withstand

His will, or maid stern Ógun’s call? To-day

Is yours, oh, mother of great kings that shall be:

The green shoots greet the Spring-rain and forget

The barren months, and Mórimi shall know

Her grief and her reproach no more.” Then doubt

Seized Mórimi but still she answered; “Will Gods

Not give? Is the grim World a morning market

Where they drive bargains with the folk they made?

Are babes as bangles which Obálufon

Fashions to barter?” But Édi answered her:

“But once Arámfè spoke to Odudúwa,

And with what heavy hearts the Gods went forth

From Heaven’s valleys to the blackness! Now thrice,1

Thrice to the woman Mórimi the word

Has come—with promise of the World’s desire:

Not every wife is chosen for the mother

Of a house of kings. And think!—Obálufon!”

Then Édi, the Perverter, hid his form

In darkness; and with the dawn a young girl lay The death of Adétoún. On the Undoer Éshu’s altar—while

The lazy blue of early morning smoke

Crept up the pass between the hills.