The creation account is told in variants that disagree on the central actor and the disagreement is not incidental. In the Ife version, Obatala is given a snail shell of sand, a five-toed hen and a chameleon and lowered on a chain onto the primordial water; he pours the sand, the hen scratches it in every direction until land spreads, and the chameleon is sent to walk on the surface to test whether it will bear weight. In a widespread variant Obatala gets drunk on palm wine on the way down and Oduduwa completes the job, which is how the creation is transferred from an orisha of the whole Yoruba world to the specific ancestor of the Ife royal line. The point where it was done is Ile-Ife, and the name means something like the house that spreads. Oyo traditions tell it differently. Which version is authoritative bears directly on the standing of the Ooni relative to the Alaafin, and the dispute is current.