The Birth of Red Blood Cells

As long as there is sound in the chest there is life in the body.

In the darkness stood sixteen clay statues, their lifeless eyes staring out over an ocean that thundered and crashed against the shore. The moon hung low over the surf, its reflection in the water creating a silvery path into the horizon, the place where water and sky met; it was the place where Olódumare’s spirit slipped from heaven and made his way to earth followed by two of his odu—Ogundá and Odí. Before the statues the odu took form and their shapes were similar to that of the sculptures molded by Obatalá’s hands. “He made them to look like us,” said Ogundá, touching the machete that hung at his side. “He used his blade to carve them in our image.”

Ogundá and Odí looked around and saw Obatalá sleeping peacefully, his back against the trunk of a coconut palm. They smiled at each other. Ogundá looked at Odí and said, “It is such a shame. Obatalá does all this work; he labors and creates the human form under the hot summer sun. And still, he doesn’t get to see the mystery of life.” Gently he touched the head of each figure, and then he blew on them one by one. Three spirits came to earth with Ogundá that day: Olori (the spirit enlivening the head), Ipari (the spirit enlivening the limbs), and Ipejeun (the spirit governing the internal organs). All three spirits settled in those sixteen forms; they took up residence in their heads and gave them the power of consciousness. “Now, they are complete.”

“Not quite,” said Odí. She understood the material world evolving before them in ways only a woman of her nature could; and gently she touched them in the place where the legs met the trunk. On some she touched the chest and sighed. “They are all exactly alike and they need to be different.” Ogundá watched as half the figures became male, their loins bulging with strength, and half the figures became female, their chests swelling. “Now, they are complete.”

“Should we not wait for Osá and the spirits she brings?” asked Olódumare. Incorporeal as he was, his voice seemed to come from everywhere at once—from the earth, from the sea, from the air—and the two odu shivered. His voice was the voice of nature.

“She is late, as she always is,” said Odí. “The gifts we bring to these are enough.”

“They have all they need,” agreed Ogundá. “All they need to live is here except the breath of life.”

Olódumare’s essence strengthened around the sixteen figures; the night became thick and powerful around their forms. The two odu caught their breaths as the humans’ chests rose for the first time, and light came to their eyes, the light of consciousness. They were alive.

Yet the figures stood still and did not move.

“Why do they not move?” asked Ogundá. “They have orí. They have consciousness.”

“Why do they not move?” asked Odí. “They are male and female yet they do not move.”

“Perhaps,” said Olódumare, “we should have waited for Osá.” The two odu looked childishly at their feet. They had been taught a lesson, but gently.

It was then that Osá slipped from heaven and crossed the silvery path to land. She was the last to arrive and there were tears in her eyes when she saw the world’s first humans facing the sea. The moon had risen higher in the sky and their soft, black faces were bathed in its light. Their chests rose and fell in time with the crashing waves. She touched their bodies; they were firm and supple, but they were cold, cold like the sea and the night air around them.

Odí and Ogundá stood with their arms crossed watching Osá as she inspected the still, unmoving forms. “As always you are late,” said Odí.

“We were here with Olódumare when he gave them breath. Where were you?”

“I was preparing the gift I bring.” One by one Osá moved among the figures, touching them and kissing them lightly on their cheeks. “They have no heat. They have no passion. They have no fire in their veins. They cannot live like this.”

Olódumare smiled at Osá. “What did you bring?”

“This.” She conjured the spirit named Ejé Oruko Bale, and sent the spirit into the sixteen breathing forms. Cold flesh became warm and supple; gently they swayed and stretched and moved on the shore. For the spirit Osá birthed became the blood that flowed through the veins; it was red and hot, and gave warmth to the cold bodies. Ejé Oruko Bale was the essence of life and as long as it flowed, as long as there was the sound of a heart beating inside the chest, there was life and movement in the body.

“This,” said Olódumare, “is the essence of life. Blood is the life. It is that which flows and nourishes all the spirits living in the human form; it is that which carries my ashé throughout each living creature.”

Since that time blood has been the vehicle for life; it is the blood that ties all the spirits of the body together, and it is the loss of the blood that sets them all free to return to the spiritual world. And just as blood bound the gifts of Odí and Ogundá in the human form, so is Osá the tie that binds all three odu together and we say, “Where we see one—Ogundá, Odí, or Osá—we must consider all three.”

This was the decree of Olódumare that day, and since that time Osá has followed Odí, and Odí has followed Ogundá; and no matter how slow any are in coming, they wait for each other before acting.