THE LEGEND OF ELEGGUÁ

Tells the story that many years ago, in the lavish kingdom of an African monarch, was born his firstborn son whom they called Elegguá. At age 8, the child was very precocious, daring and mischievous and gave a lot of work to his parents. One day, walking along the seashore with his guardian, I saw an object shine next to a palm tree and ran to take it. His guardian tried to prevent it, he worried that he had a dangerous object and it looked strange and had two intense lights in the place of the eyes and a slight white cloud in his mouth, but Elegguá escaped from the hands of his protector and escort and ran to take the object to take it. When I saw that it was the fruit of a baby and was fascinated, then he heard a voice saying, "Take care of me and save me from the moths and worms that will want to eat me over time, if you protect me, I will give you health and prosperity". The boy promised the coconut to take care of him while he lived and took him to the castle. There he told his story to his father and the whole court, but everyone made fun of him and played him with the coconut, throwing him from one side to the other without the girl avoiding him, and the king's advisor said to him: "you son will give you problems with that imagination that he has, we are going to hide the coconut so he can forget about that invention. "But that same day the boy fell ill, and three days later he died.The court and all the people mourned the death of the prince and called a fortune-teller to He said that a good genius who lived locked up in the coconut had been offended and insulted and that is why the prince had died. "From that moment the king, repentant, ordered to venerate the coconut and ask for his forgiveness and protection, but the eyes of the Once again, the fortune-teller said: "We must put eyes, mouth and ears so that he can hear us and can speak to us." So they inserted some snails in his eyes and the genius saw them again. two shells were inserted in his ears and the genie heard his prayers again, finally they put a mouth to him and the genius spoke and transmitted all his wisdom to that ignorant people and forgave him.

Those snails that the fortune-teller used were bucios, since then the bucios acquired the gift and the power to communicate to mortals their designs through divination, as well as the will of the spirits of the dead and that of the gods. The coconut, who was named after Prince Elegua, was since adored and consulted with respect by all the wise men, fortune-tellers and healers of all times ...