Obatala

Before there was any dry ground, Obatala lived in the sky among the other orisha, looking down on a world of water and marsh. He asked Olorun, the supreme god, for leave to make solid land where the orisha could walk, and Olorun agreed. For advice on how to start, Obatala turned to the diviner Orunmila, who read the future and told him to have a chain forged from gold, then climb down it carrying soil packed inside a snail's shell, a hen that could spread the soil about, a black cat to keep him company, and a palm nut. To get the gold, Obatala asked the other orisha living in the sky with him for their share, then had a smith beat what he collected into a chain, link by link. He hung the finished chain from the edge of the sky and climbed down it until he was suspended above the waters.

There Obatala tipped the shell so the soil dropped onto the water below, and it began to spread across the surface. He set down the hen, joined by a pigeon in one telling, and the bird went to work with its claws, throwing soil in every direction until the water beneath had turned solid. Obatala set foot on the new ground and named it Ife. He put his palm nut into the earth, and it sprang up at once into a tree heavy with further nuts, and those in turn grew into more palm trees around him. Olorun sent down his messenger, a chameleon named Agemo, to check on him, and once Obatala asked for more light, Olorun brought the sun into being. Obatala made his home under the palm tree, with only the black cat for company.

Called Orisanla in this telling, Obatala worked alone in his hillside garden when his own slave, Atunda, defied him and sent a huge boulder crashing down the slope toward him. It struck him and broke his body into countless pieces, and every piece grew into one of the other orisha of the Yoruba pantheon.

Olorun, the supreme being, could not be worshipped directly, with few shrines built for him, since no one could be sure which offerings would satisfy him. People turned instead to a second heavenly sphere nearer their own world, home to every other god and spirit and ranked there from the greatest down to the least, with the orishas holding the top rank of all. Orisanla stood over even the other orishas there: the most senior of them all, said to have existed before humanity and before every other god, living in that empty space with only his slave Atunda to serve him.

Shattered on the hillside, he did not stay broken. Orisanla grew whole again, and afterward helped Olorun create the human race. He later married a goddess named Odudu, said to be the mother of every other god.