Ọ̀gbẹ̀ Meji (Ogbe)

1 = single line (I); 2 = double line (II). Eight marks: the first four are the right-hand leg, the last four the left-hand leg, each read top to bottom. In the 0/1 notation used in the scholarly literature, 1 here = 0 there and 2 here = 1 there.

The verse read in the Diaspora corpus names a large catfish for the client's Orí and a feeding for Èṣù, and asks that kola be put before the ikin on Ifá's own day; Nigerian houses prescribe differently and some name no materials in the publicly taught text. What is constant across houses is the shape of the prescription rather than its contents: ẹbọ is required because the odù itself is what carries the ìre, and the offering is what protects it from the equal and opposite weight the odù also carries.

Ọ̀gbẹ̀ is the first odù and the measure of the rest: light, opening, and a destiny that is being met rather than missed. It carries success and honour, and it insists that every good it brings is balanced by an equal weight of the contrary, so the good has to be protected by ẹbọ and by humility. Its central demand is moderation in all things; its central warning is the arrogance of deciding that the good came from oneself rather than from Ifá. It is also the odù in which the tradition places the beginnings of things — the first human beings, and in some houses the birth of Ọbàtálá.