Truth

[Olùkọ́ Ọbádélé]

Truth

"Olofi created the earth and all the things in it.

Olofi created beautiful things and ugly things.

Olofi created Truth and Olofi created Falsehood.

Olofi made Truth big and powerful, but Olofi made Falsehood skinny and weak.

And Olofi made them enemies.

Olofi gave Falsehood a cutlass, unbeknownst to Truth.

One day, the two met and started fighting.

Truth, being so big and powerful felt confident, and also very complacent since he didn't know that Falsehood had a cutlass.

So Falsehood cunningly cut off Truth's head.

This jolted and enraged Truth and he started scrambling around for his head.

He stumbled on Falsehood and, knocking him down, Truth felt the head of Falsehood which he took to be his own

His strength being truly awesome, a mere pull from Truth yanked off the head of Falsehood and this Truth placed on his own neck.

And from that day what we have had is this grotesque and confusing mismatch: the body of Truth; the head of Falsehood."

Creation Story of Africans in Cuba

[Olùkọ́ Ọbádélé]

"We are trained all our lives to run from sacrifices made for our own aims....Because we have been trained to run from death before actually looking into its white face, we run from truth and put our faith in established lies preached day and night, century after shouting century, as if it were eternal truth."

-Ayi Kwei Armah