Obatalá’s Insanity: How Arayé Destroyed Him

Arayé saw a great weakness in the orisha Obatalá: he cared too much about wickedness staining the world. At night, in the shadows, she came to him, showing him in his dreams every wicked thing that crept across the earth.

After years of this, Obatalá broke—he couldn’t handle the nightmares anymore.

On the night he broke he awoke suddenly covered in sweat, his body shaking with rage and fear. Every night had been like this for longer than he cared to remember. He would lay his head on his pillow and close his eyes, weary from a day’s labor, and as soon as his body went limp, his mind raced. He dreamed of all the pain and suffering existing in the world. He saw humans with bodies contorted and twisted in the most horrible shapes, afflicted with diseases that ate the flesh agonizingly and slowly. He heard mothers wail and fathers cry as their children died before their time. He saw entire countries rising against one another in war, murdering the innocent for no reason other than the color of their skin or the stain of their faith. He saw murder, rape, torture, arson, and every evil thing that humans do to one another in desperation. All that pain bore down on him like a crushing weight until he couldn’t breathe. All that pain tormented his head, and he suffered. Sometimes he felt the world’s pain; it was physical and it was intolerable.

One question burned his thoughts: Why? In a world created by Olódumare’s own hands, why does so much pain exist? He reached out with his mind to feel every bit of it in the world; he wanted to know the torment of the human soul and the anguish it encompassed. Like a tsunami, despair swept him over, ate him up, and pushed him to his limits.

It was then that Obatalá went quite mad.

In his madness, he robed himself in black cloth, grabbed a machete, and rode out into the night. Like a sinister shadow he swept the globe, wailing like an osogbo and beheading everyone who stood in his way. The more he killed, the more wanted to kill, and like an insatiable force of nature he pillaged, he plundered, he avenged every horrible act in the world with brute strength. A great cry rose to heaven that night, because in his insanity Obatalá murdered not only the guilty, but also the innocent, for all human hearts contain wickedness.

Olófin heard their cries, and he took form on the earth to stop Obatalá.

The orisha was about to murder an innocent woman when Olófin stood between them. He held his arms out to the orisha, offering an embrace. “My son,” Olófin pleaded, “you are not well. The world is afraid of you. Come here, to me.”

Obatalá stiffened; rage boiled his blood. “I am not well? The world is not well! I can fix it—I can destroy everything and start it up again.” His eyes were bloodshot with madness.

“Obatalá, look around you,” Olófin pleaded. “You are murdering the innocent along with the guilty.” He pointed to the woman Obatalá was about to behead: “She is a mother with eight children. If you take her, they have no one.”

“Look inside her heart, Olófin.” Obatalá’s voice was gravelly and rough. “She is a thief. She robs people who work hard for their livelihood. And she is a prostitute. She is vile; she must die!”

“Look deeper, Obatalá,” ordered Olófin, his voice calm but firm and unyielding. “Look deep inside her, and see why she does this.”

Obatalá touched her head, wanting to crush it, but with Olófin watching, he was restrained. He closed his eyes and looked inside her head. He saw flashes of her youth: an alcoholic father and an abusive mother. She saw her husband raping and beating her. He saw the husband abandoning her for another woman, leaving her and her eight children to fend for themselves in the world. He saw her pain, her anguish, and how her heart broke every time she robbed, every time she turned a trick. But it was how she fed her family.

Obatalá trembled, just a hint of sanity returning to his eyes. “Olófin?” Tears came. “What have I done?”

The orisha collapsed into Olófin’s arms, and together the two fell to the earth. For hours they sat there, Olófin comforting Obatalá, and Obatalá sobbing uncontrollably. When Obatalá’s eyes closed from exhaustion, the mighty Olófin raised an arm to heaven, and a strong, swift wind carried them home.

No one ever saw insanity in Obatalá again. It is said that he lives in Olófin’s palace, and Olófin, afraid of what he might do in the world if released, keeps him restrained, but comfortably so. And for now, the world is safe. We are safe. But the osogbo Arayé—she still plots . . .