Ogo's revolt

OGO'S REVOLT.

Like his twin “brothers,” Ogo was attached to his formed placenta as a complete being and was provided with four “body souls,” evidence of the four elements. But he was still alone; Amma was proceeding to fashion the female twins of the nommo anagonno, who were to be completed sixty “periods” after their formation.

From that time on, Ogo demonstrated his anxiety and impatience. Although Amma wanted to form his female twin and give her to him, as he had done with his twin brothers, Ogo, in his anguish and desire to possess her, believed that she would not be given to him and he became incessantly restless.

Thinking he was to be deprived of her, he “was irritating” Amma by moving about. Amma then told him that he would receive his female twin at the time of her birth, of her “emergence from the womb.” But Ogo did not believe him, demanded her immediately, revolted, and started to look for her without waiting for Amma’s creations. This search consisted in trying to gain possession of Amma’s work for his own advantage.

Now, the lower part of Ogo’s placenta was located in the same place where once the sene seed had been made. He wanted first of all to gain access to the first thing Amma had created and judged complete enough to entrust it with a creative mission. Ogo “touched” the sene, thinking he would find his own female twin in the place where the seed had been produced. But Amma had taken the creative function away from the sene: because of its failure it was now nothing more than a “germ.”

Nevertheless, Ogo tried to seize it, and he demonstrated his aggres- siveness in that he himself did not want to be “touched” by the sene seed. They fought, and it is said that during the fight Ogo took away two of the sene’s elements, water and fire, leaving it only air and earth. But this fight also brought about a mutual impregnation, for it is said that “the sene became rotten” by Ogo’s actions; but, from its side, it helped to accentuate Ogo’s incompleteness. Later on, one will say that “the roots of the sene are the Fox’s four members and its thorns (are) his claws,” thus emphasizing that during the fight each had acquired a part of the other.

Dissatisfied and breaking all the rules, Ogo began to move about with the intention of getting hold of the secrets of the universe in formation. Provided with his body souls, but without the capacity to reproduce, he “watched for the formation of the seeds,” Amma’s semen, to catch it, use it for himself, and be fertile like his creator. He began by measuring this universe. To do this, one says, he “walked” inside the womb and took 8,000 x 60 “steps” over sixty periods, the “number” of this placenta. The total obtained, 28,800,000 “steps,” will make up the distance that will eventually separate the sky from the Earth, as well as the circumfer- ence of the terrestrial world to which Ogo was to be confined. To take this measurement,

Ogo started from the east, traveled towards the south, then went west and north in the opposite direction of Amma who, starting from the east, had begun the world in the north. Having thus begun his course in the opposite direction to the one followed by Amma, Ogo then turned in the same direction as Amma, thus complet- ing a second path inside the first and tracing two lozenge contours, one inside the other.

Ogo had not yet disorganized anything by this journey: he simply wanted to “see” the creation. He walked in a zigzag all around Amma’s work in progress. However, these comings and goings “striped” his placenta as well as Ogo himself, who still bears the lines: three on the body and four on the face.

Now, the universe in Amma’s womb was still outside of time and space, which were intermingled in a common state of valuation, that of the number and in particular of the said “number of the placenta,” where they were being formed. By his act, Ogo was the first to determine aseries of sequences which prefigure, in their reality, both dimension — the “step” he used to measure — and time — the periods during which he took these “steps.” That is why the “stripes” of Ogo’s body and face are associated with the colors of the rainbow — symbol of the bond uniting sky and Earth, which will be separated by a distance — as well as with the seasons that will follow each other on Earth and that will be evidence of time.

From this perspective, the lines are as follows: red, bado body lines: white, nay banu black gray face lines: yellow, bago green blue, dine Similarly, the stripes of the placenta are the prefiguration of the morphology of the terrestrial world to which Ogo will be attached: the Earth will be represented by a rectangle divided into sixty parcels. So, Ogo had traveled around the universe to “see” the bounds of creation. Having completed his journey and finding himself at the center of Amma’s womb, he declared that “he knew just as much as Amma” and that he was capable, in his turn, of creating a world. So he said: “Amma, I have seen the world that you created.”

Amma answered him: “As I have created, create (something yourself) neither in the sun nor in the shade; you stay there; as for me, I will come to find (us) together.”* Amma said this to confuse him and to ask something of him that was impossible to accomplish. Leaving the center where he was, and sent back by Amma to the west, Ogo stole the “nerves,” volu, of Amma, that is, the “nervures,” or internal volu, of the egg which were eventually to open into four clavicles.

He seized the nervure which formed the separation and wove a utensil m the form of a bonnet with it. Starting at the top and ending at the bottom, he made it so well, in fact, that, once the object was finished, he found himself enclosed inside, just as Amma himself had enclosed himself in the primordial egg. This object, later named yurugu goro, “the Fox’s bonnet,” and then, to ridicule Ogo’s failure, nu goro, “bonnet of the beans,” was round and egg-shaped in the image of “Amma’s sky.”

“Ogo, having stolen Amma’s nerve, began the nu goro, he wove it going down. Ogo, by spinning, wove the nu goro; he turned it upside down on his head.”

Ogo had made the basket as had Amma his creation: the two motions were represented which Amma bestowed upon the first seed, and later upon the two worlds: the spiral by the coiling, the vibration by the rays. Thus, Ogo had repeated the vibratory-spiraling motion of Amma. Therefore, his work was a challenge to that of Amma.

Amma then said: “That resembles the image which I have created; do not contest me”; because, seeing him work, Amma feared that Ogo might be able to make a world just as he himself was making one. However, situated there under the overturned object in a place “without shadow or light,” since the braiding was loosely done, Ogo defied Amma.

At that point, irritated by this success, Amma cut off a part of his tongue, or more precisely, “the vein of his tongue.” So, Ogo was deprived of the full pitch of his voice, thus of the range of sounds he was able to emit. Amma then sent him back to the clavicle of the west and Ogo left the nu goro basket in the southern clavicle, where it remained.

OGO'S FIRST DESCENT.

Like his twin brothers, Ogo had received the “word,” therefore the “knowledge” to henceforth appear in this universe: the impairment of the pitch of his voice — even if it was connected to the utterance of the word — did not deprive Ogo of his possession of that word. This mutilation was simply Amma’s warning.

Ogo, however, wanted to take unfair advantage of this knowledge, in order to act on his own authority and to equal his creator. He “was born prematurely” and left his placenta hurriedly “with his eyes closed,” that is, in the primordial darkness. In doing so, he disrupted his own gestation and the order of the world because, emerging from the side where his umbilical cord was attached, he tore off from the placenta a piece that was “square,” thus well delimited, and as such lending itself to both extension and division.

Now, the celestial placenta itself had been divided into two by Amma: “Amma organized two placentas. A round one which was on top second one, attached to it, was an open circle, which connected the two of them; at the center was Amma himself. The placenta above was right (proper); the one below was wide open (because) one side had been stolen by the Fox. It was not in proper form.” This last sentence alludes to the fact that the torn piece had a square shape and was therefore “not right,” in contrast to the round form which is bounded and completed by its circumference.

Also, at birth, Ogo had torn out the piece of his placenta attached to his umbilical cord. Therefore, the name of ogoyne, “the rich one,” given to the Fox out of politeness by diviners, is related by the Dogon to the term ogo (umbilical cord),’ on the one hand, and to the word ogu (quick), on the other hand, expressing his haste. Restless, worried, anxious, too quick to act, Ogo was also a premature being; on the psychic level, he was not all separated from his “mother,” from whom he had, meanwhile, “torn” himself away voluntarily. For mankind, the navel, bogu, will be the reminder of this primordial wrench.

Moreover, Ogo tore a piece out of the placenta which contained his female twin in formation, who was to be produced sixty periods after him. He thought he would be taking her with him by doing this. Amma, however, removing from the placenta the basic spiritual principle of the being in gestation, put it out of his reach. This spiritual principle, which was to animate Ogo’s female twin and which was her prefiguration, was entrusted to the other nommo anagonno, who would keep her until Amma produced a support for her.

All Ogo’s future attempts will be to look for and take back his lost female twin — or yet, his female soul — a loss due to his pride, his revolt, and his initiatives. He will never find her again. So, in yet another way Ogo upset Amma’s plans, since he did not wait for his splitting, that is to say, his own twinness. Therefore, from that time on he will be alone and “weak” (yugi or yugu).

As for the birth process itself, it is said that the cord of Ogo’s placenta was linked to the egg and that Ogo, whose head was at the bottom, by tearing out the piece as described above, turned around like a child, so that he could get out. He descended in seven phases or periods into empty space, still linked to his placenta, which was turning around itself. To feed himself, Ogo ate some bi fruit.

The placenta, which constituted Ogo’s “ark,” was directed by Amma to the east, du. Indeed, from the very start, Amma wanted to remedy the disorder caused by Ogo. Now, from the spatial viewpoint, east (du) is the “root” (du) of things. “Bad things,” in returning to the east (du), return to the “root” (du) of the world: the good in them is directed to the north, du daga, “root left behind,” ie., in the hands of the creator, who had begun the realization of this world by “turning” it to the north; what is permanently bad goes to the south, tenulu (from tene dana, “to cut and set”).

Now, Amma had also sent the four tonu of the sene seed to the east, connoting the four elements conferred upon the witness of the first world, i.e., the image of the seed. The-seed wanted, first of all, to put Ogo back in his place in Amma’s womb. However, it was unable to do so; it was swept up by the spinning motion of the piece that had been torn off.

So it descended with the rebel, whom it supposed to be victorious in his fight against his creator. Single and therefore incomplete, it also tried to get closer to Ogo, so it might take his female principle away from him, believing he had it in his possession. It is said that the tonu of the sene descended like a whirlwind between the two pieces of placenta, the one that had been torn out forming the ark and the other one that had stayed in the sky serving as an intermediary to Amma.

The placenta that had remained in the sky and the ark “turned in opposite directions”; the seed was drawn in between the two. It is also said that Ogo descended due to the movements of the sene, the seed having been placed in front of him, and that “the whirlwind of the sene is the blood (like the wind) of Ogo’s placenta.”

So, sometimes passing Ogo, sometimes being passed by him, the sene seed completed the descent, stuck to the bleeding placenta of the rebel. This phase of the sene’s role is recalled by the figure drawn under the altar to the Fox (yurugu lebe): the four yala are drawn on the ground before it is erected.'° Finally, it is said that the thorns of the sene are “Ogo’s nails,” because he took the seed with his nails. Having stolen a piece of his placenta, Ogo also stole from Amma the first seed he had created. Now, the movement of the sene seed contributed to the formation of certain plants: it developed by spinning and sent portions of its shell, which made up its placenta, to the four cardinal directions of space, where they formed other seeds. “The sene seed, by spinning, helped the earth that gave birth to trees and seeds. As it spun, it was the way the po was going to spin.”

For it is the seed of the female po pilu which, by its spinning about, will complete Amma’s creative work.’ The plants thus created will be either thorny trees like the sene or plants whose fruit is generally inedible: mono, bala, dolo, dolum gonolo, sene be,” onuge'‘ and tara onuge, volo pilu and geu, pogo, inu banuma,' balakoro,'* togozo si; or grassy plants of the bush, sanavonu, keni, atay, kolumo, keukuzu, solo anu, olo, tenu, gala; or mushrooms (often poisonous), fa boy. These seeds called “seeds stolen from Amma by Ogo,” amma dene ogo guyo, are also named dene debe, “seeds covered” (by the earth).

they alone will later germinate during the first rain. The sene will abandon them in space as it descends. In like manner, the spinning of the sene will create insects, but these will descend by sticking to Ogo’s bloody placenta: they are, on the one hand, the barankamaza and the kaka bamagommolo and, on the other hand, the minne iru keke and the kaka kolo kayaze, formed from the shell containing the core (or “nest of the core,” ninilu guru) of the sene. The minne iru keke was Ogo’s “tick,” kibizu. Now, the barankamaza dullogu, a water insect that will burrow into the dry earth to wait for the first rain, had a shape that recalls the gesture of Amma showing his creation.

It was later sent by Amma to counteract Ogo’s deeds. It is said: “Amma made the barankamaza go down; it showed the way (route) by which Amma created the world.”!” These events are represented by a figure called “drawing of the amma ta,” or “descent of Ogo’s ark and of the barankamaza dullogu” (fig. 55),18 The mask making up the top portion of the figure represents the open- ing of Amma’s clavicles.'

The hewn out part — into which the wearer puts his head — is like the “door opened” by Amma, in which Ogo (at the center of the two clavicles) and the barankamaza dullogu (to the right) have taken place for the descent. Anticipating these events that will follow, one says of this figure “Ogo and the insect met in space like the sun and sigi tolo, Sirius, will meet each other.” The characteristics of the sene, its role in the formation of plants and insects, and the fact that it came first in Amma’s creation are all re- called by a figure called “seat of the Great Mask on the drawing of the sene spinning the world”  drawn at the time of the Sigui. The four sene na grains, which denote the four elements and the four cardinal points, surround a dot called timmu, “superposed,” which is the result of their spinning about. The four oriented dashes represent the four insects formed in this way: to the north, the minne iru keke; to the east, the barankamaza; to the south, the keke bama gommolo; to the west, the keke kolo kayaze.

One says, after having drawn the figure (while the head of the Great Mask is placed on top): “Drawing of the image of the world of times past, Amma, come and help us, Amma, put us on the right path.”?! Because the drawing represents what Ogo made come down with him and which he had taken from above, one also says of this figure: “The drawing of the seat of the imina na is the image of what the Fox (i.e. Ogo) brought down from ‘the star of the po, ’(1.e., what he took from Amma’s womb); the mina na leaning (against the boulder) is like the seated sene. ”

FORMATION OF THE EARTH.

The piece of placenta that was Ogo’s ark and that turned on its own axis, first landed on the “fork of the world,” where it left a trace much like the piru of the sling;” it made then three turns in place (clockwise), and finally a quarter of a turn, bringing the head of the ark to the south. Seeing the disorder caused by Ogo, Amma then transformed the piece of placenta into earth; later he will form the moon, ie pilu, from the opening Ogo had made to emerge from his womb.”

The ark then stabilized itself, oriented itself east-west, and became our Earth. When he noticed that the soil was humid and as if muddy, Ogo declared that there was no place for him on Earth. So that he might find a place for himself, Amma dried it up, transforming the soil into “heavy, sandy earth,” “minne soso demme.

Ogo, noticing the hard shell of a bi fruit (called pelie), went inside it and hid himself by closing the  opening. He then asked Amma if he could see him. And when Amma, picking up the fruit, answered in the affirmative, Ogo fled and crouched down in a hole. This gesture is evidence of “Ogo’s exit from the world” and of his separation from the creation as it was conceived by Amma.

Ogo then tried to find in the ground what he was lacking. He started to look for his female twin and his lost soul in the piece that had been transformed into earth. To do this, he entered his own placenta and, asif he already had the “claws” with which he would later be provided, he dug furrows (golo) in the ground, beginning in the east. He made a sort of spiral path inside the Earth.

His pathway, in the image of the first journey made inside his placenta, was not curved, but straight, each lap being marked by a stop and forming an angle. Thus he dug five series of twelve holes; at the sixtieth, he emerged onto the sky. In the drawings of Ogo, the number corresponded to the numbers of yala that had made up the circumference of the gaba in Amma’s egg as well as to the count in base 60 “of the placenta.” By imitating “his father” and by determining the form of the torn-off placenta by the same number, Ogo was trying to make it equal to the one in which he himself had been created, that is, to make it fertile.

These holes also formed, in the earth, the outline of a first field where the seeds would be sown, in order to “complete the incomplete Earth” that consisted of the stolen piece of placenta and to make it equal to Amma’s in every respect. Ogo was foreseeing the future sowing. Thus, “the piece of placenta stolen by Ogo made the second world, the descended piece became field, became the second world.” The journey included twenty-eight stops (seven times “four angles”) or periods, to which the departure and arrival are added, or two periods more.”’ Ogo’s actions, which took place at a stage of creation outside of time and space, prefigured divisions, sequences, and distributions. The  duration of his peregrination — thirty “periods” — symbolizes the future division of the year into lunar months, for the formation of the moon and its phases will be related to his work.

Therefore, one some- times says that, if the placenta in its entirety “represents the year,” Ogo’s journey inside the stolen part represents only a twelfth part, namely “the lunar month.”* Thus, an essential difference was already developing in Ogo’s attempt to equal Amma. Now, by penetrating into the earth, the substance of his placenta, Ogo was uniting with his mother. In a certain way, the quest inside his placenta is that of a ‘single’ being, possessing only one part of his spiritual principles, and who has lost the female twin he is seeking in the same womb where he himself was formed.

One says that Ogo entered through the mouth and came out through the sex of his “mother,” the Earth, thus committing an exceptionally grave form of incest. This first attempt will be followed by other efforts on Ogo’s part, who, in the future, will eternally pursue the search for his spiritual completeness and for the lost twin. In speaking of Ogo tearing out his placenta and of his incest, it is said: “His mother and the sky (it is) all one; it is as if he had stolen a piece of sky; Ogo, like the kuno, was (had as a symbol) 7; he entered into his mother, seeking to add (to himself) the word 8. (But) the word did not come very much to Ogo.

The incest committed with his placenta, the earth, his “mother,” was nevertheless productive. First to be born were the Yeban (yebeu), small creatures with big heads, discolored bodies, and frail limbs who, for shame of their condition, hide in the holes of the earth. They coupled and gave birth to the Andoumboulou (andummolo), who are even smaller than they are. All these beings were born single. All were incestuous because, like Ogo his progenitor, a Yeban male coupled with his daughter, an Andoumboulou woman.

Thus, the Earth’s interior became slowly populated with these beings who are the very first to attest to Ogo’s failure and his lost twinness. So, by these births Ogo made of his “mother,” the Earth, the equivalent of his wife, i.c., of his ideal twin. But as this union produced only incomplete, imperfect, single beings, it was unsatisfactory and showed Ogo’s first failure in his attempt to equal Amma.

REPRESENTATION OF OGO'S FIRST ARK.

In the ancestors’ sanctuaries in the family houses is a sort of receptacle called nu koro, “bean box,” or yurugu koro, “ark of the Fox” In the shape of a weaver’s shuttle with high sides becoming narrow at one end, it has a handle at each tip forming boat-stemsWhen turned upside down, this “ark,” with the bow higher than the stern, evokes the future silhouette of the animal which, by the way, is branded into the bottom with a red-hot iron, together with the image of a po seed, the symbol of all cultivated seeds. By its shape, the ark is also the prefiguration of one of the rhombuses, which will be the image of a Fox that would spin when grabbed by the tail. Like the ark, the instrument is carved in sene wood, a tree whose avatars are related to those of Ogo.

The oblong shell has notches at the bow and stern, symbolizing the degrees of Ogo’s descent. It is the image of the egg of the world and of the placenta of which Ogo tore out a part, marked by the opening of the vessel, the sides of which show the direction of the “stroke of the claw.” The buttonhole shape of this opening and the narrowing of the walls illustrate the labors of Ogo who, wanting to act on his own, tried to close himself up in his ark. In doing so, he was doing the opposite of what would be the future task of the Nommo, who had to act for the good and the multiplication of all, as indicated by the widened shape of his own ark, symbol of the extension of all beings. The “strokes of the claw” marked the hull with grooves which are reproduced by twelve longitudinal lies, branded with a red-hot iron,

The result of the agricultural labors later performed on the prepared ground is also recalled by the closed profile of the ark, a conical trunk with an oval base, having the shape of a pile of seeds heaped up on the threshing floor. All the 12 x 5 compartments together are also the count in base 60, called “reckoning of the placenta,” or reckoning of Mandé.

The ark is decorated on the inside with several figures branded in with a red-hot iron, certain ones of them being the representations of Ogo’s future deeds:

— the field Fox, placed in the middle, its tail stretched out to the back, reminds us that the ark is oblong, like the rhombus and the animal itself.

— to the right, towards the front, a diagram of a tree represents the sene,

— to the right, towards the back, a group of dots are the po seeds, later stolen by Ogo, and poli (sesame) seeds.

— in the middle, to the left, a personage prefigures the future “diviner,” holding a “hand of the Fox” in his right hand.

— on the right edge, three notches are the three grasshoppers that will land on the ark the moment it has been stabilized: bolomo toru, yamana (or kako), kaka amma giru.

After he had caught them, Ogo ate them: this was his first food on earth. To commemorate this, a grasshop- per is sometimes placed under a stone by the diviner before he writes the question in the sand.

VARIANT.

In Wazouba, the ark is represented by an object a cubit long, made of ga guyo wood, called amma kolondo, [...]stage of his existence he was still pure, omo (literally: alive), that his being was not corrupted and had not yet contributed to the serious disorganization of the world in formation. The uses of Ogo’s ark are varied: the one placed near the ancestors’ altar served in the past to measure the seeds necessary for the daily food of the family. It was used to scoop up the beans for seeding, put in reserve after the harvest.

This gesture was symbolically valid for all seeds, and it recalled that the bean will be the first to germinate in one of the holes dug by Ogo,** as will the po pilu in its own hole immediately after the bean. In light of this, to extract it by separating it from the fine sand in which itis kept is like separating it from the po, which is as fine as sand, i.e., to preserve it from any risk of impurity.

The arks of the family houses, measuring a cubit long and a hand wide, may be used either as a seat by turning them upside down, or as a platter on which one puts the sacrificial meat for the old men. However, this should only be goat’s meat, because this animal, associated with the Fox, is his agent: none other may be put into this receptacle. To consume the goat is to consume Ogo himself.

As for mutton, the sheep being the animal of the Nommo, this is placed in the receptacle shaped like the Nommo’s ark. The ark is also represented by a basket used to sift beans, also called lance-handle (dommolo) is planted to the left of the entrance: the bark of this wood is placed under the foundation. This plant effects a purification of the site of the sanctuary. The segele is put in water used to shave the priest’s head. When the binu is “impure” (puru), a branch of saselu is crushed and mixed with water to sprinkle the sanctuary. Small sticks of saselu are stuck vertically into the sand of the divination tables to establish the series of questions. The Fox “speaks” because “it is his tree.”

The saselu is used to make the posts for the weaver’s loom, for the Fox, who possesses the “word,” has also woven it, [...]nu koro, “bean box,” which is oval and braided in fibers of palmyra leaves, siu, currently used to separate the beans from the grains of sand in which they are kept ? The grid engraved on the object described above is, in a certain sense, the projection of the inside surface

Basket of the beans (layout and cross section). of this basket, the prototype of which must have sixty-eight twigs or bars. The basket is bordered with bark of yoru geu (or yoru na); the separation strings are of cotton fiber.

The palmyra used for the fabrication of the basket, with regard to this first ark, constitutes the link that unites it with the “sky,” Amma’s seat. It was like the “chain” that would later allow the descent of the ark of his twin brother and adversary, the Nommo."' The palmyra thus united the sky and the Earth, formed from Ogo’s ark.

Ogo’s ark is also represented by a small wooden drum, koro bogu, koro “with a navel.” The instrument, made of a hollow trunk of sene wood, has a rectangular form: at one end it has a sort of protuberance which forms a handle . The whole thing connotes the torn-out piece of placenta and the attached bit of the umbilical cord. The object is also the image of the first “field” spread out by Ogo; on the inside and the outside, there are sometimes carved figures representing incomplete, unfinished beings. The opening of the instrument is the opening of the universe: the bottom is the earth, cultivation, and everything that is below; the sides are the sky and the high millet. The player alternately strikes the bottom and the one and the other side: this means to leave the sky to arrive on Earth.

Ogo’s movements inside his placenta, his quest to see the universe created by Amma, and his descent are all recalled by the form of one of the sirige masks. The figure that represents it is called “drawing of the sirige of the run of the Fox around the worlds that Amma created” (fig. 42. yurugu koro bogi olu-ne banu-go yurugu va dene-go guyono-ga banu. Literally: “it is to say to the Fox: ‘don’t steal the seeds’ that they play the drum with the Fox's navel.”

the worlds being represented by the vertical series of seven red circles painted on the mast. From this viewpoint, the grids of the mask having five slits, each represents one of “Ogo’s strokes with his claws” to tear off his placenta. Theoretically, the total of sixty slits is equal to the sixty holes dug in the ground; one also says that he gave twelve strokes with his claws which correspond to the twelve lunar months. The filled surfaces of the mast are decorated with lozenges representing Ogo’s two fields, the first being the “hole” in which he will sow the stolen po, and the second to be delimited at a later time.** At the same time, these filled surfaces are also the future divination tables.

OGO'’S RETURN TO THE SKY.

Ogo’s quest on earth for his twin — his female soul — had long remained fruitless. Moreover, the soil was arid. Thinking the Earth useless such as he found it, Ogo immediately left it and reascended to the sky to continue his search there. Amma, foreseeing the increasing seriousness of the initiatives of Ogo, who caused only disorder, had in the meantime begun to make changes inside his clavicles.

He placed the nommo anagonno titiyayne in the clavicle or egg to the east, where the nommo semi was; he pushed the rest of Ogo’s placenta into the west egg; finally, he entrusted to the couple of the east egg the spiritual principles of Ogo’s future female twin, whom he had not yet produced, so that Ogo would be deprived of them.

To reascend to the sky, Ogo spun in a spiral from east to north, then to the west, then to the south, to return to the east, making twenty-eight stops at the “corners,” that is, seven stops at each of the future “cardinal angles” (sibe nay) — all this in sixty periods. He will also remain in the sky for sixty periods, during which he will again measure the breadth of the universe by walking from east to north, from west to south.

One recalls Ogo’s first descent with the sene, his ascent to the sky, and his new journey by saying: “The sene and the Fox, Amma had them descend first, the sene turned space, the Fox traveled around space,  returned from it, came back, went up to the sky.” During Ogo’s reascent to the sky, Amma gave the order to the nommo titiyayne to transform the placenta into a burning fire to prevent his coming near it. Ogo could grab only a small bit that he tore off, burning himself in the process, just as the nommo titiyayne was performing the metamorphosis. Amma then made the placenta spin and turned it into a sun; at the same time, he took the spiritual principles of Ogo’s female twin from it.

The sun would be called nay, “four,” a term which recalls, on the one hand, the femininity of the placenta and, on the other hand, the fact that, in the course of these events, it had been divided into four pieces, two of which were stolen by Ogo. The rays of the sun were made from the blood of the placenta.