Oxalá kept the secret of the shells to himself. When Exu stole his white clothes at the river, Oxum brought them back, and her price was the búzios. Since then, the shells speak through her.
A play on the jogo de búzios from Candomblé.
In Candomblé the jogo de búzios is read by a mãe or pai de santo, inside a relationship of initiation, care and offering. None of that happens here. The shells fall at random and the lines are prompts written from orixá stories, to think with. If you want a reading, go to a terreiro.
In many tellings the shells belonged to Oxalá until Oxum won their secret. That is why the tray opens with her story.
Each answer has two lines, and each one starts from an itan, a story of the orixás, as gathered in Reginaldo Prandi's Mitologia dos Orixás and in oral tradition. Which orixá speaks in which odu differs from house to house. The pairings here are common ones, not the only ones.
Made by Vitor Freire. A small experiment by Imagination of Things.