Yoruba mythology describes Oba or Obbá as the first wife of Sango, the Oyo Empire’s third king, and the Yoruba Thunder and Lightning God.
Obbá is a river Orisha in folklore. Her mother was Yemaya, Mother of Water and all Orishas, and she was a consort of Sango’s.
One of the most well-known stories related to this Orisha is Oba’s humiliation by a rival co-wife. Oba was preparing yam flour (Amala) for her husband Sango, which is his favorite cuisine, when Osun, her co-wife, inquired what she was preparing. She told her and Osun advised her to add her ears to the meal, which she did.
Sango will be drawn to her if she adds her ears to the dish, according to Osun. Oba ripped off her own ears and put them in Shango’s food.
Her husband ate the food and regained his strength. She took off the clothes that had been covering her ears and showed him her ears, telling him how much she loved him and how she had cut her ears to feed him.
Sango became enraged because Oba mutilated herself, Sango went to live with Osun, as Osun desired, and that is why she fooled Oba into cutting off her ears.
She became the Obba river, which meets the Osun river after she was grieved (Osun, Sango’s other wife, who duped her into chopping her ears off) at raging rapids, a symbol of their enmity.
Despite their history, the two ladies became the deities of the Osun River, which flows through Oshogbo, Nigeria. River Oba, which flows through Ogbomosho and is a tributary of the River Osun.
Obbá was thought to be Sango’s sole woman capable of bearing imperial heirs, which the other wives blamed for their rage.
