Iya Oyo

Iya Oyo took a slow and long drag on her pipe, and released the smoke in short puffing sounds.

The moon was orange bright, a perfect golden disk floating on the clouds.

Some insects, hiding behind the darkness, sang in harmony with the frogs serenading the stars from the pond next to the Orisa house.

It was the perfect time for me to ask my question: nobody was saying anything.

“Iya Oyo,” I said, “what about Adam and Eve?”

She inhaled again, waited for a moment, “What about them? If you want to talk about them, ask the pastor, your grandfather sitting here. My parents did not instruct me about any Adam or Eve. It is a story that began circulating around here quite recently when the white people arrived.”

I quickly replied, “It has been in the Bible for hundreds of years. It’s just because the Bible only recently arrived here.”

“I’m not interested in the story,” Iya Oyo said. “I am a daughter of Irunmole. I know how the world started, because those who birthed us did not leave us untutored about life.”

“You are the daughter of Irunmole?” I asked her.

“Without any doubt,” Iya Oyo responded. “The Irunmole descended from another galaxy called Ọ̀run in a spacecraft called Ẹ̀wọ̀n, which measures time and distances in millions per second. They landed in Ile Ife at a place called Oke Igeti. Everything is clearly spelt out. There was no mention of any naked or nude couple hiding behind trees after eating a fruit in the entire history they handed over to us.”

“How then did Adam and Eve come into the picture?” I asked again.

“Don’t be confused; this is very simple,” Iya Oyo told me. “The history that I pass down to you is the one you pass down to your offspring.”

“Some also said we came from Mecca,” I said.

“Don’t be confused, my child,” Iya Oyo repeated. “The history that I pass down to you is the one you pass down to your offspring.”

She then told me a long narrative about the arrival of the Irunmole from a distant galaxy called Orun.

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The video here shows one of my impressions of the spacecraft called Ẹ̀wọ̀n on which the Irunmole rode as they journeyed to this planet to land at Ile Ife.

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