Why is Animal Sacrifice performed in the Yoruba Religion?

At the beginning of time human beings were offered to the Yoruba gods in return for months of bliss and prosperous harvests.

Odua The one who was king in this town summoned all his subjects to sponsor this holiday by collecting yams, and then drawing the letter that would govern the new year in the company of the other Oluos of the kingdom.

Pataki where the Son of Oduduwá did not sacrifice his own son and thus changed the tradition

Odúa's favorite son was the Babalawo in charge of buying the human being who sacrificed himself every year, for this reason he left for another town that traded people to undertake the order.

On the way to his destination, he ran into a woman who was carrying a sack of corn and could not cross the river with it, so the man threw it on his back and crossed the river to the woman and her merchandise.

This in payment to the favor made, he paid him in kind for his services.

Some time after these events occurred, Odúa's son returned with the offering to the town and the woman with whom he had been intimate had discovered that she was pregnant, a reality that she kept secret until she gave birth to the child.

The little boy grew up with his mother who cared for him while selling in the town square.

One day the boy was very restless and the mother, in order to control him, tied him by one leg next to his platform and continued serving customers.

Suddenly a man came to his post and asked him if he sold the child, this was Odúa's son whom the woman recognized instantly.

She said yes, whispering in the boy's ear not to be scared because she would go for him preventing anything bad from happening to him.

The man gave a fair payment for the child and took him to his village.

Animal sacrifice is born in the Kingdom of Oduduwá

Once they arrived at the kingdom of Odúa, the child entered the castle accompanied by his father. Without his father's knowledge, he handed the child over to Odúa, who required him to carry out the opening sacrifice of the year. The mother, who had been following them, shouted for the ritual to stop.

She confessed to everyone what had happened years ago and sent the child to sing the song she had taught him, the same tune that his father had uttered the day he was unknowingly conceived.

She said that it would be a sin for a father to sacrifice his own son and proposed instead to slaughter to the gods a goat, a rooster, a hen and some pigeons that he brought in a sack.

From that day on, customs in the kingdom changed, giving birth to animal sacrifice in the Yoruba Religion.