Oba

Oba is the orisha of the River Oba, whose source lies near Igbon where her worship began; in the nineteenth-century wars her cult moved to the more secure town of Ogbomoso, where she is praised as 'Oba, who owns parrot tail feathers and fights on the left'. She is the senior wife of Shango, and the best-known story has a co-wife, usually Oshun, convincing her to cut off her ear to feed Shango, after which he drives her away and she becomes the river. William Bascom studied the variants across West Africa, Brazil and Cuba, and found that her priest at Ogbomoso did not recognise the popular version; in the Odu Ifa she 'lends her ear' by listening, and it is this that ties Shango to her.

Oba is served at the river with parrot feathers, fish and palm oil, and her practice is the keeping of a vow and the tending of a marriage. Her festival at Odo-Oba in Ogbomoso is the tradition's own annual observance. She is not called for romance but for the cost of loyalty and the grief of being displaced.