This Odu Ifa talks more about heaven and death. Just as Eji Ogbe is more concerned about the earth so is Oyeku Meji more concerned about heaven. Oyeku Meji explains death and its purpose and also its way of operating in the past and now. Oyeku Meji explains that death comes from Orun (heaven) to earth and stays at the crossroad. He scans the earth for the next person who has to be taken to Orun and he walks up to the person and together they make the physical journey to Orun. Death appears physically and people don’t die, they walk with death to Orun.
When death is in this physical form, people run helter-skelter when they see him coming. Oyeku Meji explains further that a certain tree whose time was up went to Orunmila to help him on how to escape death. Orunmila asked him to make sacrifice with the following items: rat, fish, hen, pigeon, and alcohol and place it at the crossroad which was the first point of call for death whenever he comes from Orun. When death got to the crossroad and saw the sacrifice he immediately sat down to devour it and said to himself, “I will finish this first, replenish myself because of the long journey ahead and then take the tree to Orun.” But after eating the sacrifice and drinking the alcohol which he had never tasted before he became intoxicated, and started talking rubbish. (This is why people who are at the point of death talk rubbish.) He staggered to the root of the tree and climbed up but because he was drunk he fell down and disappeared back to Orun because his back must not touch the ground. It was when he got to Orun without the tree that Olodumare reprimanded him and said, “From now onward you death shall not appear in human form to people on earth again before taking them to Orun because your human form can be compromised.”
It is Oyeku Meji that also explains why the red cloth is never used in burying the dead. When all the cloths and materials that were in Orun were coming to earth, they were asked to make a sacrifice so that the humans will respect them and treat them well and also for death not to take them back to Orun too quickly. Orunmila told them to make a sacrifice. All the cloths refused except the red cloth, who brought goat, red dye, and chamomile to Orunmila. He was dip in the dye and chamomile and became red. When they got to earth, the humans were looking for what to use to bury their dead and they saw all the cloths coming. They said, “let us take one of them to bury our dead.” They took the red cloth first but the awo there said if they ever bury a human being with red cloth, then the whole lineage will be struck with leprosy and they will all die one after the other. So they left the red cloth and took the white cloth and the awo said again this is the cloth that must be used in burying the dead because it is pure and it will help the dead to light up his way back to Orun. So it was that the white cloth was taken back to Orun soon as it came to earth because he refuse to make sacrifice so that death will not take him back to Orun too quickly after coming to earth. Aboru Aboye nile Ifa!
