Among the most frequently told Eshu stories in the Ifa oral corpus is the tale of two farmers who work neighboring fields and have sworn, publicly and repeatedly, that nothing could ever come between their friendship. Eshu, the divine messenger who carries offerings between the human and divine worlds, governs the crossroads, and enforces the consequences of neglecting ritual obligation, decides to test the boundaries of that claim. He walks slowly down the narrow path that runs between the two fields, dressed in a cap that is one color, most often black, on the side facing one farmer and a different color, most often white or red, on the side facing the other; in some versions he also smokes a pipe from one side of his mouth only, doubling the asymmetry.
Each farmer sees only his own half of the passing stranger and thinks nothing of the encounter until later, when the two friends meet and casually mention the odd visitor who passed between their fields that day. One insists the stranger's cap was black; the other is equally certain it was white. What begins as a small disagreement escalates quickly, each man convinced the other is lying or mocking him, until the argument turns violent and the friendship the two had considered unbreakable collapses entirely.