Unle Becomes a Farmer

“Lazy men may live by their wisdom, but fools will never know how to manage their affairs.” This was the advice that the odu gave Unle when he was trying to determine how to earn his wealth in the world. For quite some time, he had worked as a diviner, and this had provided him an adequate living, but as people made ebó and loosened the chains of osogbo that were upon them, they came to visit Unle less and less. Having lost ultimate power in their lands, the osogbos had packed up and fled, and soon Unle was surrounded by humans who made their living through various means. Most of these were farmers. As the masses of clients seeking his wisdom slowed, Unle found his income dwindling, and soon had to decide what he would do to maintain his wealth on the earth. All his neighbors, too, wondered what Unle would do, for no one could live without a skill or trade. Finally, Unle announced to the world, “I have acres and acres of land for myself. I will be a farmer.”

Everyone who knew Unle laughed. He lived alone; he had neither a wife nor children. He was elderly, and had not the strength to clear his own land, plant his own crops, or reap the harvest. Unle divined for himself as to how he was to become prosperous as a farmer, and the odu told him, “Lazy men live by their wisdom and become wealthy, but fools will never know how to manage their affairs.” With that proverb in his heart, Unle set out to become a farmer.

He took the money he had saved and hired sixteen men to build three huge storehouses on already cleared land. One he built for corn. One he built for yams. One he built for beans. By his order, each storehouse was huge, large enough to hold more than half the crops produced by the surrounding village. All his neighbors laughed, for between his home and three storehouses, he had little land left that was clear for farming. He also had little wealth left on which he could live. But Unle had a plan.

The next morning, Unle went outside and on his remaining land, he built sixteen mounds of earth. In each mound he scattered seeds, not crops, but medicinal herbs that he knew could be used for curing a variety of illnesses. Lovingly he pushed them into the earth, and then carefully watered them so that the earth was not disturbed. He spent his day doing this, leisurely building mounds and sewing handfuls of seeds.

No one knew what he was planting, but everyone was sure that the harvest he reaped from such a small amount of seeds would barely fill the cupboards in his home. So they laughed, and watched.

“Don't laugh, neighbors,” warned Unle. “For I am building up my farm, and in time you will all understand my wisdom.”

Everyone forgot about Unle and his mounds; the harvest season came and went, and as was the usual, every farmer's storehouse was stuffed with an abundance of crops. Everyone's except Unle's. They sat empty and unused. But the seeds he planted did grow, and while everyone else was toiling to dig out roots and tubers, or shucking corn and beans, Unle was lazily hanging and drying his herbs by his fireplace. They were dried and ready for use when the first chill winds of winter came.

With those winds came sickness, epidemics, and plagues that threatened the lives of the farmers and their families. Knowing that Unle had knowledge and skills none of them possessed, when illness struck, they came to him for help. Unle provided them each with medicine, but in exchange for the medicines he owned, he charged eight sacks of beans, eight sacks of corn, and eight sacks of yams for each cure. Willingly were goods exchanged, and as each was cured of illness, more sick people came to him. In time, Unle's three huge storehouses were filled; he owned half of the village's wealth and harvests.

Word of his miraculous medicines spread beyond the village, and as they had when the earth was young and new, humans from all around came to be cured of the most heinous diseases. They brought corn, yams, and beans, but Unle's warehouses were full and he had no more room for such things. The price for his medicines changed. From each patient he cured, he exacted a promise of eight workers for eight days; and when the promised workers arrived, he set them to the task of clearing the forest that existed on his land. He had them strip and sand the wood, and he became wealthy off the sale of the lumber.

The colder months came, and with them an icy grip was over the land, and still, the sick came to him to be healed. But he had food. He had clear land with which to farm the next season. And he had wealth obtained from the sale of lumber. He continued to exact promises of workers for eight days in exchange for his medicines, and when the warmer months came, and sickness again left the land, he called upon those who owed him, one at a time, to send in their debts. This he did, one set at a time, throughout the planting and harvesting season. Because he had such an abundance of manual labor, Unle soon had the most productive farm in all the land; and he himself passed his time by leisurely growing medicinal herbs by his house for the next cold season.

This is how Unle became a wealthy farmer.