Oshalufan

Oxalufã (in the scholarly orthography Òrìṣà Òṣàlúfọ́n, revered as Olúfọ́n, the ancestral sovereign of Ifon-Osun) is the venerable, patriarchal and majestic personification of Obatalá (the Great Orisha of Creation and patriarch of the Funfun Orishas), the mythical king of the historic city of Ifon in southwestern Nigeria. In Nagô-Yoruba metaphysics and liturgy, Oxalufã represents the wisdom accumulated over centuries, unbending moral rectitude, the immaculate whiteness of creation, and the power of patience that neutralizes human anger. He is conceived as an aged monarch with white hair and beard who walks with slow, meditative steps, bent under the weight of millennia and leaning on the Opaxorô (ọ̀pá ọ̀ṣọ̀rọ̀), the monumental sacred silver staff crowned by a divine bird and movable discs, which joins the spiritual world (Orun) to the earthly one (Aiyê). His most famous and moving myth recounts his pilgrimage to Oyó to visit his friend King Xangô: warned by the oracle to bear every insult in silence, Oxalufã was mocked three times by Exu and unjustly imprisoned for seven years by the royal guards without ever complaining. This mute suffering dried up the rains and halted pregnancies in Oyó until his purifying release restored the fertility of the empire. In Brazilian Candomblé Ketu and Jeje, this myth gave rise to the most sacred and moving ceremony of the annual calendar, the Águas de Oxalá, in which priests dressed in white purify the temple under absolute silence.

8 min read · Reviewed on September 30, 2026 · How we research

The opashoro staff, the white robes, the slowness and the silver crown

Primary sources

• Samuel Johnson, History of the Yorubas (Johnson, 1921). translation: Ed. CMS (1921), historical annals of the kingdom of Ifon and lineage of Olufon.
• Leo Frobenius, The Voice of Africa. translation: London: Hutchinson & Co. (1913), ethnographic accounts of Ifon and white-purity cults.
• Pierre Verger, Culte des orisha et vodun à Bahia. translation: Mémoires IFAN 51 (1957), orikis of Olufon and the myth of the Waters.

Studies

• Juana Elbein dos Santos, Os Nàgô e a Morte: Pàdà e Àṣẹ. Vozes (1976), ontology of the funfun gods and the ewôs of palm oil, 1976.
• Roger Bastide, O Candomblé da Bahia: Rito Nagô. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional (1958), phenomenology of the Waters of Oxalá and the Opaxorô, 1958.
• Edison Carneiro, Candomblés da Bahia. Rio de Janeiro: Edições de Ouro (1961), ritual description of the cycle of Oxalufã, 1961.
• Pierre Fatumbi Verger, Orixás (Tradição e Mito). Ed. Corrupio (1981), compendium of the itans, ewôs and liturgy of Olufon, 1981.