Ananagú: How Osogbo Was Freed in the World

You can have everything, and lose it all in the blink of an eye.

The young woman lay sweating beneath her sheet; the bed was soaked; fever licked at her skin, eating its color and making her look waxen. Her breathing came in rapid bursts before stopping, and then, to catch her breath again she gasped at the air like a landlocked fish. Ofún stood over her, stooped over partly with age but mostly with concern, examining her.

He knew the woman was dying. He also knew he could save her for there was no candle burning at her feet.

He called to the woman’s young daughter, the only other person in the house. She was only eight years old. She came, her face wrinkled with confusion. “Is mommy okay?”

It was a doll-baby voice, stressed and on the verge of sobbing.

“No, little girl, mommy is not okay. But she will be. I need you to run outside to my horse. There is a bag hanging on his side. Do you like horses?”

“Yes,” she said, not taking her eyes off her mother.

“Good. My horse likes little girls; so don’t let him frighten you. Just go get that bag for me. It’s hanging over his side, on a rope. Do you think you can do that? I don’t want to leave your mommy alone.”

She nodded, and backed out of the room. Ofún put one of his hands on the woman’s head and another one on her belly. He started to chant. He chanted and prayed until the little girl came back with two bags, one in each hand. “I forgot,” he smiled, “that there were two. Thank you for bringing them both. Now, can you go wait outside while I try to heal your mommy?” She ran out without a word.

Ofún pulled a white bolt of fabric and some herbs from one of his bags; he covered the woman’s feverish body with the cloth. She trembled with delirium, but the cloth seemed to move with more than just her shaking. It boiled and rippled with an unseen force. He passed handfuls of the herbs over her body while he chanted an ancient incantation; the sheet vibrated and moved violently. Bit by bit, he scattered the leaves on the white sheet, and slowly, he rolled it into a tight cylinder, folding it over itself several times until it was a tight ball. This he tied with a length of cord.

The fever broke; the woman’s breathing returned to normal. Ofún sighed, and smiled. The ball he held in his hands shook angrily. “Another of the world’s evils trapped,” he whispered to himself as he stuffed it back into his bag. He latched it firmly. The bag seemed to tremble. “I’m getting too old for this,” he said.

For Ofún was an old man. Many decades before, while he was still young, his godmother Ikú shared a great secret with him in return for a pact; Ikú had taken Ofún deep into the woods, to the roots of an ancient Iroko tree. It was midnight, and their only light was that of a moon that loomed low and full over the trees. There, at the Iroko’s feet, she had told him, “This was the first one of its kind. When the orishas themselves came down to earth, they climbed down the branches of this ancient tree. When I first came to be, it was here, with this Iroko as witness, that I first drew form. And it is here that I make my pact with you.”

“What pact?” Ofún had asked her. There was no fear, only curiosity.

“The pact with which I give you power over death itself!” Her voice had been strong, full, echoing through the forest. Dark birds took flight as her words shook the branches in which they slept. In her hands she held out a branch covered with leaves, and carefully, Ofún took it from her. “This is the one herb that has power over me, and over all death. Remember it well. It grows sparsely throughout the forest, but with your keen eyes you will find it wherever you go. Just look for the oldest Iroko tree you can find, and there, you will find this.”

“And what am I to do with this?” Ofún had asked, holding the leaves to his nose so he could smell their woodsy scent.

“Whenever you are called to heal the sick, if they respond to no other treatment, they will respond to this. Clean those for whom all hope is lost with this herb and all sickness will flee their bodies.”

“And I can save anyone?”

“You can save almost anyone, but not everyone. Before you clean a patient with this herb, look at his feet; if with your eyes you see a candle burning there, a candle that no one else but you can see, do not clean him. That person’s life belongs to me, and you must allow me to take it.”

Ofún had smiled. “I accept our pact, godmother.” There were days Ofún wished he had not accepted that pact, days when the work was draining, and his body seemed not to have the strength to heal. Today was one of those days. Ofún touched the young woman’s forehead, and he looked at the bag that seemed to jerk and twitch of its own accord. Since the day he made that pact with his godmother Ikú, it had not been enough for Ofún to heal the dying; no, he wanted to heal the world and free it from all misfortune. Since the herb made healing easy enough, he turned to the study of magic and sorcery, and learned how to trap the spirit of the diseases from which he saved the human body. All these ills he kept locked up in a special room in his house, a room, which no one but he was allowed into. Yet osogbo was a powerful family of spirits, and each one he trapped drained away a bit of his own health and resolve.

“Still, it is work worth doing,” he said to himself. The young woman’s eyes fluttered open. They looked glazed with confusion. “Who are you?”

“I am the physician your neighbors sent for. My name is Ofún.”

She managed a weak smile. “Where is my daughter?” Ofún called for her.

By nightfall, the young mother’s strength returned. She sat in a chair holding her daughter, Ananagú, in her lap, stroking her hair carefully with her hand. Ofún sat across from them and smiled against the strained silence. Finally, the young woman spoke, “I was afraid today, and I need to thank you.”

“You are welcome, of course,” said Ofún. “It is a doctor’s duty to tend to the sick.”

“Please,” she paused and took a deep breath. “Let me finish.” She waited for Ofún to nod his head slightly. “I was afraid today, not for myself, but for my daughter, Ananagú. I thought I was dying, and I have no husband. I have no relatives. Thank Olófin I have good neighbors with sense enough to send for you, but as you saw, while I lay in my sickbed, Ananagú was all alone. If I had died, she would be alone.”

“But you are alive and well!” Ofún said. “And your daughter is not alone.”

“She might have been had you not come in time. And it is for this reason that I am asking you to do me, us, and her, a great honor.”

Ofún’s eyes narrowed a bit. “What honor would you have me give you? I am just a simple country doctor.”

She took a deep breath before speaking. “I would like you to stand as godfather to my daughter. No one lives forever. I could have died today. It is only because ofyou that I did not. But had I died, she has no one. If you would be her godfather, my mind would be at peace knowing that if something happened to me, she would have you.”

Tears welled up in Ofún’s eyes. When he was a young man he had a wife who died, and he had a daughter with that wife, a daughter who died just days before her wedding and whose body later disappeared, stolen, so he believed, by evil spirits. Perhaps the same evil spirits that he spent his life trapping. Gently he wiped at his eyes with his fingertips, and blinked rapidly to clear them. He smiled. “I would be honored to be Ananagú’s godfather,” he said. “Truly, honored.”

Before he could say another word, the young girl flew off her mother’s lap and embraced him. Both the mother and the old man cried freely.

When Ofún was not tending the sick, he was spoiling his goddaughter; the years passed until she was a young woman, hauntingly beautiful, with eyes that resembled those of the daughter he lost decades before. Those eyes made him love her more deeply; it was more like the love of a father for a child, not that of a godfather for his charge. Ananagú returned his love unashamedly, and so close were they that most of the villagers thought they were father and daughter. The young mother, not so young anymore, loved Ofún as well for all he did for her child. It was as deep as any family bond that ever existed on the earth.

One day, Ananagú’s mother came to Ofún; her face was sorrowful, and he invited her into his house. “You look troubled. What is bothering you?” Ofún asked. She looked away, a single tear in her eye. “Please,” he said, taking her chin gently in his hand, and with a handkerchief, he wiped the tears from her eyes. “Tell me what is wrong?”

“I can’t find work anywhere in town. Things are really bad right now. I think that if I travel, I can find work; but a life lived on the road is no life for Ananagú. She has friends here. And her teachers are here. And you are here.” Her voice trailed off. “Yes, I am here for her. I was blessed when you named me her godfather.” Ofún saw the sorrow clouding the woman’s face, and it broke his heart. “How can I help? You know I have many charms.”

“No, I don’t need charms. Nor do I need witchcraft. I need work. And while I am away, working, I was hoping that Ananagú could stay with you. She loves you. She’d be happy here for a time.”

Ofún smiled. He loved Ananagú as if she were his own daughter, and only Olófin knew how much he missed her when she was away. “I would love to have her stay with me. While you are away I will care for her as if she were my own flesh and blood. No harm will come to her.”

The tears came from the woman’s face as her arms encircled Ofún tightly; he felt the love and gratitude flowing into him as if it were the most powerful ashé. “You are such a good man, Ofún. I love you, too, as if you were my own father.”

Ofún cried as well.

It was a sad day when Ananagú’s mother left her at Ofún’s house. Ananagú cried; her mother cried, and Ofún cried. “You be good and listen to Ofún,” she said, her hand caressing Ananagú’s head. “And I won’t be gone too long. There’s no work here, and we are broke. The only way I can provide for you is if I travel to find work. When I am settled again, I will come back for you.”

The mother’s face twisted as she tried to hold back her tears; but the tears came. They were hot and salty, and left red streaks down her face. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too. I’ll miss you.” Ananagú wiped away her own tears and turned to Ofún; she smiled. “But I’ll be fine. My godfather will take good care of me.”

“You’re such a good girl,” her mother said. The three embraced one final time before parting, and Ananagú stood at Ofún’s side, his hand on her shoulder, while they waved. When her mother was gone, Ofún looked down at Ananagú. “We should go inside and chat. While you are here, there will be rules.”

“Aren’t there always?” She smiled.

They were having lunch when Ofún gave Ananagú the rules she was to live by in his house. She listened intently.

“You know that I am a priest, and I deal heavily in the spiritual world.”

“Yes, godfather. I know.”

“And you know that I am a doctor and I heal the sick.”

“I know that as well,” she said.

“For years I have advised your mother, and since you were but a toddler, I have taken care of you spiritually, and have taught you the ways of our orishas.”

Ananagú smiled. “Yes, godfather, you have. But what has this to do with the rules?”

“To the point,” he thought to himself. “Just like me.” Then, he addressed his goddaughter.

“Ananagú, in this world are some terrible things, and I have spent my life studying those terrible things. I have dedicated my life to healing. Along the way, I have come across some things that are . . . not for the eyes of children. Nor are they for the eyes of those who are not initiated into the mysteries of the orishas. You have full run of my house, but there will always be two rooms that are off-limits to you.”

Ananagú’s eyes sparkled at the hint of mystery. “What rooms might those be?” She listened intently. Children always wanted to know about what they were not supposed to know.

“My chambers, of course, are off-limits. I am your godfather, not your real father, and it would be unseemly for you to be in there.” She nodded her head in understanding. “But there is a room in this house where I keep all the tools of my work, spiritual tools, and that room is always locked. You must never, ever try to go in there. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, godfather.” She smiled innocently as she spoke. “I won’t ever go in either room.”

Ofún looked at her sternly. He was worried, but saw that she understood.

That night, Ofún was called away to tend someone who was sick. A frantic young man came beating on his door, and when Ofún answered it the man insisted, “My sister is very sick. You must come now.”

“What is wrong with her?” he asked. Ananagú, who heard the commotion, stood behind her godfather and listened.

“She was bitten by a snake. Her leg is swollen. It’s blue. And she just lays there; she’s delirious and talks crazy talk. We think she’s dying.”

“Wait for me here,” he said, inviting the young man inside his house.

Ananagú took him by the hand and led him to a chair while Ofún ran behind the door of the forbidden room. “Godfather has to gather his medicines. Please, sit. Relax. He won’t be long.”

The young man sat in the chair shaking. He jumped when Ofún burst out of his room with bags in his hands. Ananagú shivered—she thought she heard a pained moan coming from the room behind her godfather.

“I am ready. Let’s go.” Together, Ofún and the young man walked off into the night. Ananagú shut the front door behind them, and she was alone. For some time she stood at the front door listening; faint but awful sounds seemed to come from behind the forbidden door. Even there, by the front door of Ofún’s house, she could hear them. They called to her. When she was sure her godfather and the man were long gone, quietly she crept across the room toward the door, that awful, mysterious door, and she put her ear to it. She listened.

Its wood felt warm, almost feverish, and it seemed to vibrate against her ear. She pressed the side of her face harder into it; the vibration tickled her skin and rattled her brain. Her breath was coming in short, rapid bursts and her heart pounded in her chest, but she barely noticed. She only listened to the whispers inside that room, whispers that seemed not of this world.

“What does he have in there?” she thought.

“Ananagú . . .” One of the voices whispered her name. She sucked in her breath and jumped back from the vile door. Then there were a thousand whispers, all chanting her name in a cacophony that sent goose bumps down her skin.

She ran to her own room and hid under the covers of her bed. “What awful things does godfather have in that room?” she whispered to herself. Ananagú fell into an exhausted but fitful sleep.

When Ananagú woke up the next morning, Ofún was still away. Alone, she waited in the front room, sitting in a chair and staring at that door. There were still whispers, and they frightened her. Suddenly, they stopped, and almost immediately the front door opened. It was Ofún.

Ananagú knew he was exhausted; his hair was an uneven mass of tight curls, and it seemed a bit greyer than it had before he left the house last night. His clothes were wrinkled, and his old man’s gait seemed a bit older. Under his arm was a bag. Something inside was moving, disturbing the fabric. With no more than a nod toward his goddaughter, Ofún unlocked that mysterious door and disappeared inside the room. When it seemed he had stayed inside too long, Ananagú was afraid, and slowly she walked to it. She knocked, but gently. She thought she heard Ofún chanting.

He came out visibly upset. “What have I told you about this door, Ananagú?”

“That what’s inside it is not for my eyes.”

Ofún pushed the door shut; and in his rush, he forgot to lock it. “That’s right, young lady, what lies inside is not for your eyes. You are not to go near it.”

“You never said that, godfather,” Ananagú argued. “You never told me to not go near it. You told me to not go inside of it. And I was worried. Strange things happened while you were gone last night.”

“What. Strange. Things?” Ofún emphasized each word separately, and his eyes narrowed with worry. “If you did not open this door or go inside this room, what strange things could have happened?”

“There were whispers after you left godfather. Awful, terrible whispers. I stood at the door and listened. And the voices know my name. They called out to me.”

Ofún trembled where he stood. “This is not good, Ananagú. You should not be here, not if those things know your name. I will send a messenger for your mother, someone to bring her home. My work as a healer exposes me to some awful things, and you, a young lady, should not be around them.”

“I want to stay,” she argued, still eyeing the door. Watching her looking at that awful door sent chills down Ofún’s back.

“No, you’re not staying. Not now. I’m going into town to hire a messenger. He will go to your mother and tell her to come back for you.” He saw tears in Ananagú’s eyes.

“It is for the best.”

“I’m sorry, godfather. I didn’t mean to make you angry.” She hugged him tightly and cried.

“I’m not angry, child. I’m just worried. You should not be here around my work.”

Ofún left the house. He left Ananagú alone while he went to hire a messenger to find her mother. Ananagú was alone, alone with the door, and the room, and the whispers.

What neither knew was this: Ananagú’s mother missed her daughter terribly. She had already decided to come back home for her. Ofún’s messenger would never reach her.

It was early evening and Ofún had not returned; Ananagú was alone, and the whispers were at it again. Sometimes they sounded like the rushing of a great wind, and other times they were gentle, like a breeze wafting through the forest. Always, they were sinister, and each time they called her name it made Ananagú shiver. But they brought no harm, and in time, Ananagú, almost feverish, got up from her chair and crept to the door. The closer she got the louder and more insistent the voices were, and when she could not help herself any longer, she reached out and touched the doorknob.

Immediately, there was silence.

“Hello?” she called out to the whispers. Again, only silence. The doorknob felt warm in her hands.

“It cannot hurt to take just a peek?” It was spoken as a fact, but in itself was a question. When no one answered, she turned the knob. Still, there was silence.

Gently, she opened the door. The room was dark, and it took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness. “Hello?” her voice a whisper itself.

She shivered as her eyes adjusted to the twilight. A single lamp was lit, its flame burning low, but it was enough to see that the walls themselves were draped with white sheets, and on the floor were white sheets with bumps of various sizes beneath them.

“Hello?” she whispered again. “Is anyone in here?” She felt warm water washing down her legs when one of the sheets rose from the floor, but just a bit, and something seemed to turn beneath it. There was a weak whisper, “Ananagú? Is that you?” So soft was it she wondered if she imagined it. The sheet settled over what appeared to be the form of a woman; it stretched out, her hips and breasts pressed up under the flimsy cloth. She thought she could makeout a face beneath the fabric. “Ananagú, help me,” the voice pleaded.

She walked closer to the sheet. An arm rose beneath the fabric, reaching out for her.

“Who are you?” Ananagú asked.

“Ofún has kept me prisoner here, Ananagú. He has kept many of us prisoner, against our will. We cannot escape. He is an evil man.” One by one the sheets twisted and rose until Ananagú thought she could make out the forms of more women, men, and children all around her, bound beneath the sheets by something she could not see.

“My godfather Ofún is a good man. He is a doctor. He is a healer. He would not do such an evil thing.”

“But he has,” said the woman’s voice again, tinged with sadness. “He keeps us locked up and when no one is around, he does terrible things to us. Things of which we cannot speak to one such as you.”

“No!” she backed away.

“Yes! You cannot leave us here. You yourself are in danger now. You know his secret. And if you keep his secret, you will be just as guilty as he. Lift the sheets. See for yourself how he keeps us bound.”

“It won’t hurt. It won’t hurt to look,” Ananagú told herself. She knelt before the sheet covering the woman who spoke to her, and gently, she pulled at it. Some unseen force held it down.

“Pull harder,” cried the woman. “It is bound with magic. And do it quickly. Ofún is coming back!” Her palms were slick with sweat when she grabbed the sheet again, and with all her might she leaned back and pulled. There was a great tearing of fabric, and Ananagú fell back still holding the ripped cloth in her hand.

Ofún was at the front door when he heard the cloth shred; thunder rumbled, but not from outside. It came from the house. “Ananagú!” he cried as he pulled at his door.

It was stuck, and held fast.

He heard Ananagú scream. And Ofún himself jumped in fear when a woman’s hand grabbed him and spun him around. “That was my daughter! What is happening?” she wailed.

Inside the house, Ananagú knew fear. With the shredding of one white sheet came a chain reaction, and all the white sheets in the room buckled and shredded as if ripped by knives; and instead of human figures, terrible shadows rose from beneath the sheets. Such was her terror that Ananagú’s hair turned white, and thousands of shadows rose up in the room. The windows shattered, and so thick were the shadows that escaped that the sky outside went dark.

It was then that Ananagú died in fright; and such was her fear that she looked like an old woman, a hag, when life left her body.

Ofún screamed in anger; and the front door cracked, splintered by the evil that escaped his house that day. He stood, frozen, while the mother ran inside. She ran to the forbidden room and saw the shredded white sheets, and the macabre implements of witchcraft and magic that lay beneath them. In the rubble, and in the darkness, she barely recognized the shell that was once her daughter.

“Ofún!” she screamed, tearing at her own hair. The old man came running to the room, and when he saw his goddaughter’s lifeless body, he crumpled to the floor, a babbling idiot. “Ofún, evil witch!” the mother cried. “You killed my daughter with your magic.”

“No,” he trembled on the floor.

“She is dead! And her lifeless body lays here amid all your tools of sorcery.”

“No, no, no . . .” he cried. It was all he could say.

In agony, the mother lifted her daughter’s lifeless body. “I never want to see you again. And I will tell everyone of the evil you brought to us this day.”

It was there, with the disobedience of Ananagú and the carelessness of Ofún, that all the osogbos of the world were released in one great mass of anger and evil; and since that time, in return for their capture, they have plagued humans and the world with all their power.

Yet one osogbo was unable to escape; one remained trapped beneath the white sheets, and try as it did, it could not leave. That was hopelessness. It was the only thing that saved the world from utter destruction.

Still, Ofún died a miserable, lonely, and reviled man.