Obatala

Obatala, King of White Cloth, also called Orisanla, is the king of the orisha in Yoruba religion. Sent down from heaven on a gold chain with a snail shell of sand, a white hen and a palm nut, he molded the first people from clay.

In some versions he drank palm wine while working and made deformed figures, so on sobering he vowed never to drink again and became protector of the disabled. Ife tradition also remembers him as a mortal founder-king of Ife.