Itan is the narrative material — accounts of the orisha, the founding of towns, the origins of institutions, the reasons for prohibitions — and it operates simultaneously as theology, history and legal precedent. Its distinguishing feature is that it is not consistent and is not expected to be. Ife and Oyo tell the creation and the descent of kingship differently; different lineages within one town give different accounts of the same orisha; the diaspora traditions have their own variants. This is not experienced as a problem to be resolved because itan is attached to place and lineage, and a version's function is partly to establish the standing of the people who tell it. The consequence for anyone trying to describe Yoruba religion systematically is that there is no orthodox version and no body with the authority to declare one — which is also why the tradition absorbed local variation across an enormous area without fragmenting into competing churches.