One of the most important and tender teachings attached to Obatala is told in the Ifa verses of the Yoruba tradition. It is said that once, while about the work of moulding human bodies from clay, Obatala drank palm wine and became unsteady, and that as a result some of the bodies he shaped that day were formed differently from the rest, people born with what the world calls disabilities or unusual forms. Rather than casting these aside, the tradition holds that Obatala took them as especially his own: people born with such differences are regarded as sacred to Obatala, under his particular protection and care, and are to be treated with special respect. The story is often told with the further lesson that Obatala thereafter forswore palm wine, and his devotees traditionally abstain from it in his honour. This teaching gives the tradition a profound and humane doctrine of the dignity of every human body, whatever its form, as the sacred handiwork and special charge of the creator-orisha.
Obatala is worshipped across West Africa and, in the diaspora religions of Cuba and Brazil, under names such as Obatala and Oxala, where practitioners associate him with Catholic figures such as Our Lady of Mercy. These are living religions, and Obatala remains among their most revered spirits, the cool, wise, senior orisha, the moulder of human bodies, and the protector of the purity and dignity of every person he has shaped.