AKAMARA

In the beginning that signified the end.

Before there was anything, there was AKAMARA — not a he, not a she, neither human nor more than human. The universal spirit that began the universe from nothing, absolutely nothing.

From Ọ̀sá Ògúndá comes the story of what happened next: one grain of sand, and a breath. Three great beings of light who gather the stars, cool them, and set them turning. A woman called Ayé, alone on her world, who asks a diviner for help. A pot that gives out the rainbow for three hundred and three days, and the One who rises from it.

Ògún brings wood, and the wood cannot feed anyone. Ọbàtálá brings water, and water is not enough. Ọ̀rúnmìlà asks first, and what the other two left behind is enough to make a world. Then the flood, and a basket of sand, and the first woman made by Olódùmarè's own hands.

One hundred painted pages, and the ẹsẹ of Ifá in Yorùbá and English. Retold from The Creation Story by Solagbade Popoola, with Wande Abímbọ́lá, Ifá Will Mend Our Broken World.