Three Ọbàtálá texts from Idowu, Beier and the Verger fieldwork tradition, and three Ṣàngó texts of markedly different sourcing quality, presented with an explicit account of which meet this corpus's standard.
06-orisa/04-obatala.md, 23-orisa-deep/01-obàtálá.md, 06-orisa/05-sango.md and 23-orisa-deep/03-sàngó.md hold this corpus's theological and biographical treatment of these two divinities. This file presents the oríkì texts this section's harvested research surfaced for each, three per deity, and is explicit about a sourcing problem the Ṣàngó material in particular makes visible: not every text calling itself an oríkì and circulating online carries the same evidentiary weight.
Aláṣẹ! O sọ ẹnìkan ṣoṣo di ìgbà ènìyàn. Sọ mí di irínwó, sọ mí di igba, sọ mí di ọ̀tálélẹ́gbẹ̀je ènìyàn. Òrìṣà! Bàntà-banta nínú àlà. O sùn nínú àlà. O jí nínú àlà. O ti inú àlà dìde. Bàbá ńlá, ọkọ Yemòwó!
O Sceptre-Wielder! O You who multiply only one into two hundred persons! Multiply me into four hundred, multiply me into two hundred, multiply me into one thousand four hundred and sixty persons. Orisa! The Immovable! The Noble One! He-who-lives-daily-in-gorgeous-greatness; immense in white robes!
Translated by E. Bolaji Idowu and, for a related passage, Ulli Beier .
What it says. A petition structured as arithmetic, the worshipper asking to be "multiplied" into increasing numbers of descendants, framed as Ọbàtálá's characteristic power: he who made one person into two hundred can do the same for the petitioner. The recurring white-cloth imagery (àlà) names Ọbàtálá's defining colour and material association throughout Yoruba practice.
Significance. Idowu's Olódùmarè: God in Yoruba Belief is a foundational work of Yoruba theology written by a Yoruba Christian theologian working to systematise indigenous religious concepts for scholarly and Christian-Yoruba audiences alike; 04-cosmology and 06-orisa/00-index.md should be consulted for how this corpus positions Idowu's specific interpretive stance. The multiplication petition documents fertility and lineage-continuation as central to Ọbàtálá devotion, consistent with his role as the moulder of human form.
Performed. Annual Ọbàtálá festivals, temple morning devotions, invocations for childbearing and blessings, and priestly initiations .
Ọbànlá ó rìn n'ẹ́rù ojíkutù s'ẹ́rù. Ọba n'ílé Ifọ́n alábàláṣẹ ọba pátápátá n'ílé Ìranjẹ. Ó yọ̀ kẹ́lẹ́kẹ́lẹ́ ó tá mi l'ọ́rẹ. Ó gbà á gírí l'ọ́wọ́ òṣìkà. Ọba Ìgbò olúwayé re e ó kẹ́ bí òwú là. Ó yí àlà. Ó sùn l'àlà ó fi kókó àlà rúmọ. Ọba Ìgbò. Àṣẹ!
Chief of the White Cloth never fears the coming of Death. Father of Heaven forever rule for all generations. Gently dissolve the burdens of my friends. Give me the power to manifest abundance. [and further, less literally rendered lines]
Attributed to fieldwork by Pierre Verger and to what the source describes as "traditional liturgy," compiled in 1957/2014 publication dates without a single named individual translator for the English rendering given .
What it says. Royal titles at two named towns, Ifọ́n and Ìranjẹ, both places with documented historical Ọbàtálá cult significance, joined to petitions for protection from "the wicked" and for the untangling of difficulty, using a thread/cotton metaphor.
This text sits at a lower confidence level than the Idowu/Beier text above. It is credited to "documented ethnographic studies by Pierre Verger" but the specific publication is not individually named beyond a general reference to Verger's fieldwork and to "Traditional Liturgy," and the English rendering given diverges noticeably in register from the literal gloss (compare "Chief of the White Cloth never fears the coming of Death" to the more literal "walks without fear, waking early to command fear"), which suggests an idiomatic or devotional paraphrase rather than a close scholarly translation. This corpus presents it because the Yoruba text itself, with named towns and specific epithets, is substantial and plausible, but flags the translation as medium-to-low confidence and the idiomatic rendering as looser than this corpus's other Ọbàtálá material.
Performed. Invocatory opening praise and prayer during morning shrine libations, offerings of cool water and snails, and annual rites .
A dákẹ́ sírisiri dá ẹni lẹ́jọ́. Ọba bí ọjọ́ gbogbo bí ọdún. Àlà, àlà, níkí-níkí oní pànpẹ́ òde ọ̀run. Ó dúró lẹ́hìn olóòótọ́, ọ̀rọ̀ ọkọ abuké. Òṣàgiyán jagun ó fi irùngbọ̀n ṣe pẹpẹ ẹnu.
He is patient. He is silent. Without anger he pronounces his judgment. He is distant, but his eye rests on the town. He kills the initiate and rouses him to new life. He is playful like death, he carries the child away. He rides the hunchback, he spreads out his arms the right and the left.
Translated by Ulli Beier, in Yoruba Poetry: An Anthology of Traditional Poems (1970) .
What it says. Judicial imagery, calm, silent, patient adjudication, is the dominant frame, alongside imagery of initiatory death and rebirth ("he kills the initiate and rouses him to new life") that connects this text to Ọbàtálá's association with Ejigbo's specific festival practice under the local name Òṣàgiyán.
Significance. Beier's Yoruba Poetry is a scholarly anthology with named source performances and a documented translator, giving this text a firmer evidentiary basis than the middle Ọbàtálá text above. The judicial and initiatory imagery documents a distinct register of Ọbàtálá praise from the fertility-and-multiplication register of the first text: the same god addressed as creator-of-persons in one text and as patient judge in another.
Performed. Festive worship, judicial reconciliations at Ọbàtálá groves, prayers for children, and the annual festivals of Òṣàgiyán in Ejigbo .
Ṣángo Olúkòsó, Akata yẹ̀rí-yẹ̀rí, Àrábámbí Ọkọ Ọya, Aláàfin, ẹkùn bú, a sá. Olójú Orógbó, Ẹlẹ́rẹ̀kẹ́ obì, Ẹlẹ́yínjú ògúná, Olúkòsó lálu. Iná l'ójú, iná l'ẹ́nu.
Sango, the Lord of Koso, draped in majestic flowing robes, child born of thunder and husband of Oya. He is the Alaafin: when the leopard roars, all flee. He whose eyes are deep like bitter kola and cheeks smooth like kola nut, whose eyes glow like fiery charcoal embers.
Translated by Oluwadamilola Adeojo, credited jointly to "traditional Ọ̀yọ́ oral chants" .
What it says. The fire-in-eyes, fire-in-mouth imagery here is the same core formula 23-orisa-deep/03-sàngó.md presents from a different transcription attributed to Samuel Johnson and Karin Barber, confirming that this specific image cluster is stable across independently collected texts, a strong sign it belongs to a genuinely widespread performance tradition rather than to one source's invention.
Performed. The annual World Ṣàngó Festival in Ọ̀yọ́, at shrine rituals, initiation ceremonies for Elégùn Ṣàngó priests .
The source is described as a "World Sango Festival Archive" web listing rather than a peer-reviewed publication; the translator, Oluwadamilola Adeojo, is named, which is more than some material in this section can claim, but the publication itself is not independently verifiable by the compiler. Confidence: medium.
Je ko ye mi Sango baalee Kosoo. Aremu baale Agborandun. O o gborann mi dun dakun mo ya mi.
Presented without tone marks, as printed in the source .
May I be pleased, Spirit of Lightning, Lord of Koso. Aremu, chief protector who listens to and defends the afflicted. Please defend my cause and do not abandon me.
Translator credited to "Will Coleman / Traditional Ifá-Òrìṣà Liturgical Translation," an edited devotional compilation rather than a single named academic translator .
What it says. A direct petition in crisis, structurally closer to prayer than to the third-person epithet-catalogue mode most oríkì in this section use.
This corpus flags this text at lower confidence than the Kòso text above and the Verger-sourced text below. The source, an edited web devotional collection, does not carry the same evidentiary weight as a book with a stated author, publisher and page reference; it is retained because the content is consistent with the petitionary register other Ṣàngó and Ọya material in this harvest also shows, but a reader should not treat it as equivalent in reliability to the Verger or Idowu material in this section.
Performed. Daily morning devotions, invocations at the Ṣàngó altar, and crisis prayers by devotees .
Bí ẹtù bá wọ ilé jẹjẹnẹ ni ń mú ewúrẹ́, bí Ṣàngó bá wọ ilé jẹjẹnẹ ni ń mú òòṣà gbogbo, a rí ru àlà oníńàsó gángan n'íle ni igbó soro ibosi.
When the guinea fowl enters the house, dread seizes the goat; when Sango enters the house, dread seizes all the orishas. He who appears in pristine white, adorned in striking embroidered vestments both in the compound and in the sacred grove where cries of alarm ring out.
Translated by Pierre Verger, from his 1957 field study of Òrìṣà and Vodun worship in Bahia and on the former Slave Coast .
What it says. An escalating-fear simile, the guinea fowl's entry frightens the goat, Ṣàngó's entry frightens the other divinities themselves, which is a striking claim about Ṣàngó's standing relative to the rest of the pantheon rather than only relative to human worshippers.
Significance. Verger's fieldwork, conducted across both West Africa and Brazil, is one of the most extensively cited primary ethnographic sources for Òrìṣà praise material in the wider scholarship this corpus draws on throughout its 06-orisa, 23-orisa-deep, and 08-diaspora sections; this text carries the highest confidence rating of the three Ṣàngó texts in this file precisely because of that documented provenance.
Performed. Possession rituals and the initiation of an Elégùn Ṣàngó (mount, priest of Ṣàngó) into the cult .
Placed side by side, the Idowu, Beier and Verger texts (one Ọbàtálá, one Ṣàngó) represent this corpus's highest-confidence oríkì material: named scholars, dated and citable publications, and, in Verger's case, direct fieldwork. The middle-confidence texts, the Ifọ́n/Ìranjẹ Ọbàtálá text and the Kòso Ṣàngó text, are retained because their Yoruba content is substantial and plausible even though their translation apparatus is thinner. The crisis-petition Ṣàngó text sits at the bottom of this section's confidence range while still clearing the bar for inclusion, a named editor, a stated devotional purpose, distinguishing it from the material this corpus has cut outright elsewhere in this section (see oriki-orile-owu-iresa-and-gaps for the Alápà lineage cut).
The white orisa who moulds human bodies, the contested creation narrative in which Oduduwa takes his place, the palm wine story and what Ife devotees actually say about it, and the politics carried inside the itan.
The primordial Yoruba deity of ethical purity, creation, and coolness, tasked with sculpting human forms from clay before the breath of life is bestowed.
The thunder orisa and fourth Alaafin of Oyo, the contested question of whether a king became a god or a god absorbed a king, the Oba ko so narrative, and Sango in Cuba and Brazil.
Ṣàngó is the Yoruba divinity of thunder, lightning, fire, justice, and royal power, whose cult formed the theological foundation of the Ọ̀yọ́ Empire.
Six documented Ògún oríkì texts from four different scholarly sources, showing the deity's seven manifestations, his contradictions, and a chanter's personal claim on him.
Two further Esu texts beyond the one analysed for its poetics elsewhere in this section, two Osanyin herbal-medicine oriki of markedly different quality, and the hunter-diviner Osoosi's homage formula.