Ẹ̀dẹ̀

Ọ̀rúnmìlà was being praised everywhere as A ṣèkan mọ́ kù - he who achieves everything, for whom nothing is impossible. He answered to it for a long time. Then he admitted it was not true.

There were still people he could not cure.

So he took Òsanyìn, his right hand in healing, and went to ask Olódùmarè what could be done about it. And - because he is who he is - he consulted Ifá before he left. Ogbè Òdí came out. He was told to sacrifice, not because of where he was going, but because of the house he was leaving behind.

They never reached Olódùmarè. The last gatekeeper stopped them - Ẹ̀dẹ̀, His messenger, colossal and robed in white, with the signatures of the Odù pouring off his body as light.

"If this is the matter, you do not need to meet Him. He directed you to come to me."

For every single disease, Ẹ̀dẹ̀ taught them two hundred and fifty-six ways to find it and two hundred and fifty-six ways to treat it. They were with him sixteen years. Òsanyìn learned the leaves and stopped there and went home.

Ọ̀rúnmìlà stayed another sixteen.

He went exactly as far as his friend had gone, and then he kept going - and what he learned in the second sixteen years is the reason a Babaláwo greets another Babaláwo the way he does, and the reason the verse says what it says: Ẹbọ jẹ́ ju oògùn lọ. Sacrifice is more potent than medicine.

A painted graphic novel from the Odù Ifá, for grown readers.