Olumirin Waterfalls, also called Erin-Ijesha, are a waterfall of seven tiers on the Effon ridge in Osun state, in southwestern Nigeria, each ledge held by a band of hard quartzite and the top step landing beside the hill village of Abake, and they are climbed from the bowl under the lowest curtain up stone steps that give out early to the village at the top, in a place that is a deity to the families of the ridge rather than scenery. The falls step down a fracture in the quartzite of the ridge, the same rock that leaks water along its whole length to feed the Arinta falls and the warm-and-cold springs of Ikogosi nearby, and the lowest curtain lands in a bowl of dark rock, the stone underfoot uneven and mossy the whole way in; stone steps take the climber past the first two tiers, every tread mossy and the handrail giving out, and the upper tiers are reached on a path through the forest, each with its own pool, until the seventh lands beside the huts and farms of Abake, a village that lives above a waterfall and grows its cocoa on the ridge. The legend has a princess, Akinla, who was not on an outing but leading her people from Ile-Ife in search of a home when she found the falls and settled at Erin-Ijesha below them.
For Erin-Ijesha and the farming families on the ridge the falls are the home of a deity, and offerings are made at the water, so the visit is with a guide from the town and the rules of the shrine. All seven curtains run at full weight in the rains, which peak in June and July and again in September and October, September the wettest, split by the drier August break, and in the dry season the upper tiers thin to threads. The falls are the most visited natural site in the state. Olumirin is a staircase of seven waterfalls, and a village lives on the top step.