YORUBA CREATION MYTH

The Yoruba people occupy what is now southwestern Nigeria and parts of The Republic of Benin, According to them, this is how humans came to be

In the beginning, there was only the sky above, water and marshland below.

The great god Olorun ruled the sky while the goddess Olokun( owner of the seas and goddess of wealth) ruled what was below.

Obatala, feeling creative went to Olorun to ask for permission so he can create dry land and he was granted, then he went to Orunmila, Olorun's eldest son(The god of prophecy) to seek advice

He was told he would need a gold chain long enough to reach below, a snail's shell filled with sand, a white hen, a black cat, and a palm nut, all of which he was to carry in a bag.

The gods contributed what gold they had, and Orunmila supplied the articles for the bag. When all was ready, Obatala used the chain to climb down from the sky with the bag hunged over his shoulder, when he reached the end of the chain he saw he still had some distance to go. From above he heard Orunmila's voice instructing him to pour the sand from the snail's shell, and also immediately release the white hen. He did as he was told, whereupon the hen landing on the sand began scratching and scattering it about

Wherever the sand landed it formed dry land, the bigger piles became hills and the smaller piles valleys. Obatala jumped to a hill and named the place Ife.

The dry land became the landmass of the earth

He dug a hole, planted the palm nut, and saw it grow to maturity in a flash. The mature palm tree dropped more palm nuts on the ground, each of which grew immediately to maturity and repeated the process. Obatala settled down with the cat for company and tapped wine from the palm tree. He liked his palm wine

It didn't take long before he realized the cat wasn't enough to keep him company, he decided to create beings that looked just like him. He dug into the sand and soon found clay with which he moulded figures like himself. He designed a lot of these figures and some of them while he was very drunk, thus leading to imperfect figures. Once he was done, he called out to Olurun to give life to his figures and the great god obliged. Obatala was pleased and went to sleep

When he was finally awake, he realized some of his creatures were deformed and felt guilty. He took full responsibility for his mistake and swore to never drink again. Henceforth his duty would be to take care of the deformed

In Yoruba tradition he is known as OBATALA- protector of the deformed

The new people built huts as Obatala had done, and soon Ife prospered and became a city.

All the other gods were happy with what Obatala had done, and visited the land often, except for Olokun, the ruler of all below the sky. She had not been consulted by Obatala and  so decided to punish his insolence

When Obatala returned to his home in the sky for a visit, Olokun summoned the great waves of her vast oceans and sent them surging across the land

Wave after wave she unleashed, until much of the land was underwater and many of the people were drowned. Those that had fled to the highest land pleaded with the god Eshu(Trickster god) who had been visiting, to return to the sky and report what was happening to them.

Eshu demanded sacrifice be made to himself before he would deliver the message.

The people sacrificed some goats, and Eshu returned to the sky to bring the message to Obatala

Obatala went again to seek the help of Orunmila and he happily obliged.
Orunmila climbed down the golden chain to the earth, and cast many spells which caused the flood waters to retreat and the dry land reappear

Olokun too came to appreciate the works of Obatala, the humans she loved amongst them was blessed with great wealth