Obara-Ogunda

"It is by aiming high, that we hit
our target at a very long distance"
was cast for the scorned hunter Oshoosi, on the day
that he happened to be in the right place
at the right time, to make himself useful.
There was Oshoosi, traveling
from the forest to the city. Halfway
he visited a tiny village, where he went looking
for an ancient sacred grove that, however,
nobody could direct him to, on account
of everybody having forgotten
where the sacred grove once had been.
Searching for the long overgrown grove,
Oshoosi saw a funeral procession passing by,
and he followed for a while,
as all well-mannered people do.
"Who is being buried?" he inquired,
and the answer was: "A child, a young girl
that died suddenly."
"How sad," the kind hunter replied,
"Please let me see her face".
When Oshoosi lifted a tip of the shroud
and lightly touched the girls face, he saw
how she moved in reaction to his touch.
He was not entirely sure whether he himself
had given life back to this girl, or that
she had only been in a state
of suspended animation. To be on the safe side,
he insisted to the parents that the latter was the case.
He helped the slowly recovering child to her feet,
and accompanied her and her rejoicing family home.
Then Oshoosi again set out
to search for the ancient sacred grove,
but once gone, forever gone:
he never found it.
"Oh well..." Oshoosi said, "if I hadn't come
to this village in order to search for the sacred grove,
I would never have seen the funeral procession,
and the poor girl would have been buried alive".
Ever since, when people visited Oshoosi in his home
for spells, amulets, healing or divination,
they always left being much better than before.
And the question whether they were healed
by Oshoosi, or that the hunter simply pointed out
to them that they were healthy... well, nobody
bothered much about that question.
It is the results that count.
From far and wide people came to see Oshoosi,
for at the exact moment they needed him,
he was always there: the right man
in the right place at the right time.
"It is by aiming high, that we hit
our target at a very long distance"
was cast for the scorned hunter Oshoosi, on the day
that he happened to be in the right place
at the right time, to make himself useful.
Adimu for this person: the cloth on his body,
in order to never be undeservedly exposed
to the scorn of people again, and money
to be determined by the awo.