The morning sun had just begun to warm the red earth of ijagbo, a quiet Yoruba village where palm trees swayed lazily and goats wandered between huts. The air smelled of roasted yam and fresh rain. Inside his compound, Baba olokun, the town’s most respected Babalawo (Ifa priest), sat before a wooden tray dusted with white chalk, his divining chain the opele resting across his knees.

A young woman named Adejoke came running, her wrapper tied carelessly and eyes swollen from crying.
“Baba, e jọ̀ọ́! My brother is missing!” she shouted. “He went to the farm yesterday and hasn’t come back.”

Baba Olokun looked at her calmly. “IFA will tell us where he is,” he said.

He motioned for her to sit. The opele clattered against the divination tray, eight small seeds falling in patterns known only to the initiated. Baba’s voice dropped into a chant, old words that seemed to pull the wind to a standstill:

“Ifa, speak. The world waits for your wisdom. Where is the child of Alade?”

He paused, studying the marks. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Hmm… Oyeku Meji,” he murmured. “Darkness that hides truth.”

He turned to Adejoke. “Your brother went to the farm, yes. But he didn’t go alone.”

Her breath caught. “Who was with him?”

“Ifa shows betrayal,” Baba said, tracing the markings with his finger. “A friend, one who envies him.”

Adejoke’s mind flashed to Tunde, her brother’s closest friend, who had recently quarreled with him over a piece of land their father left behind.

Baba Olokun  stood slowly. “Bring me your brother’s cap,” he said. “And a calabash of clean water.”

She hurried home and returned moments later. Baba dipped the cap in the water, whispering ancient words. Then he set the calabash on the ground. “Look.”

Adejoke leaned over it and gasped. In the rippling water, she saw the image of her brother tied under a tree, his face bruised but alive. Behind him, Tunde’s figure appeared, digging a shallow pit.

Before dawn broke the next day, the villagers found the spot just as IFA had shown  near the stream, where Tunde had hidden him. The young man was saved, and Tunde was brought before the elders.

From that day on, no one in ijagbo ever doubted Baba Olokun’s power  nor the truth in the calabash of IFA.

And every time the wind rustled through the palm trees, it seemed to whisper:

“Ifa ni o mo otito — Ifa knows the truth