Osanyin: the Remedy and the Sacrifice

Osanyin is the owner of the leaves, and Pierre Verger writes that no ceremony can be held without him (Verger, Orixás, p. 53). Yet when you gather the myths in which he appears beside Orunmila, the lord of the leaves nearly always loses: he loses a trial, he loses the contest for the office of diviner, he loses an arm, a leg and an eye. Why?

This Study reads three myths from Reginaldo Prandi's Mitologia dos Orixás that form a sequence. In the first, a slave bought by Orunmila refuses to clear the bush because every herb cures something, and ends up seated beside the diviner during consultations. In the second, the two bury their sons for seven days to see who is more important; Orunmila's son is called Sacrifice, and Osanyin's, Remedy. In the third, a hidden war ends with a bolt of lightning in the middle of the bush.

Then come two myths that tell the reverse, about offerings refused and offerings given. And a question that Verger and Prandi himself leave in writing: who tells these stories, and on whose side?