The Good Brother And The Bad Brother

Eyo and Tetura were brothers, twins, born from the same womb and at almost the exact same time. Eyo had come first; he looked at the world and saw it was safe. Then his brother, Tetura, came out. In life, as in birth, Eyo always ran before Tetura. He was the tempest, the storm, the bad that swept the land, while Tetura was the calm, the sunlight, the goodness that tried to undo what his brother had done, for Eyo was nothing but tragedy in the world, and Tetura spent all his time cleaning up the chaos his brother created. When they were grown and their mother died, Tetura kept the family home, while Eyo decided to go out into the world alone. “You should not leave me,” Tetura pleaded, “for I do not know how to live without you.”

“You are too weak,” Eyo replied. “You know not how to have fun and you kill all my joy. This is my time to be free. This is my time to know the world.”

And know the world he did. Everywhere he went, Eyo created tragedy and left chaos in its wake. Without his brother to restore the balance and create harmony, soon the whole world knew that Eyo was nothing but trouble.

While he was away, Tetura went to see the diviners. “Do not let anyone stay in your home,” they warned him. “No one, not even your own blood, not even your own brother, for he is a vile creature. He is Eyo—he brings tragedy and leaves destruction in his wake.”

While Eyo walked the world alone his powers grew, and he knew, “My destiny is to destroy.” And destroy he did. It was not long before the world sought justice, and everyone Eyo had harmed came together to destroy him. It was a lynch mob that scoured the countryside looking for the osogbo, for he was, indeed, a misfortune. And when Eyo discovered the world had turned against him, he went running back to his ancestral home.

“You cannot say here,” Tetura said, his heart sinking when he saw his brother: he was hungry, he was thin, he was dirty, and his clothes were tattered.

“But the world is out to destroy me and I have nowhere else to go! You are my brother. You are my twin. We shared our mother’s womb.”

Tetura’s heart was broken when he let his brother inside. He hid him in the cellar.

Unbeknownst to Tetura, the king had put a bounty on Eyo’s head, so now the entire kingdom was looking for Eyo. Everyone wanted the reward. Because everyone except Tetura was out in the streets looking for Eyo, they all knew he was hiding in his brother’s house.

The mob came to Tetura’s home, their eyes glazed with madness. It was late at night when they arrived, and they encircled the house, lighting up the night with torches. They beat on the doors. They beat on his windows. They demanded, “Send your brother out so we can kill him. The king wants his head!”

But Tetura, being all things good and kind in the world, could not bear to send his brother out to the mob. He pulled a rug over the door that opened to the cellar beneath the floor and over this he dragged a piece of furniture so heavy that the mob would neither see nor find the entrance. Tetura opened his front door to meet the horde of humans, to tell them that his brother was not there, but before he could open his mouth they pulled at him and threw him into the street. They threw their torches in the door and through the windows, and soon Tetura’s house was on fire. It burned with Eyo locked deep inside the cellar, and when the fire and smoke reached him Eyo began to scream.

The crowd cheered. Tetura cried.

Eyo died that day in the cellar; he died from the smoke and fire. Yet death only freed him from the flesh. When Ikú came for him she realized that he was one of their own. “Come with me,” said Ikú, “and I will teach you what your ashé is. You are Eyo, Tragedy, and you will do great wicked things on the earth.”

Since the day Eyo was set free from the flesh he has run through the world unchecked. And Ikú’s word was true—his ashé was great. Everywhere he went he created great tragedy, sometimes in the lives of humans, other times in the world itself. Tetura, who was, in truth, the odu Ogundá Merindilogún, spent his life fighting Eyo’s machinations in the world, but Tetura was a mere mortal. When he died, Eyo was left in the world with no one to bind him, no one to stop him, no one to clean up his messes. Since that day he has been an osogbo to be feared.