Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs on àjẹ́ (witches), oògùn (medicine or charm), and other hidden forms of power, showing how ordinary speech treats these as real, checkable forces with their own limits.
Two related but distinct powers appear in this file: àjẹ́, conventionally translated "witch," a person, usually described as a woman, credited with the power to harm through non-physical means; and oògùn, medicine or charm, the broader category of substance-based or ritual remedy that includes both protective and offensive preparations. Both are treated in Owomoyela's collection as facts of the social world proverb-speech routinely invokes, and both are shown to have limits: witches can be appeased, deceived, or checked by a counter-force, and medicine can fail against a person of bad character. This file collects twenty-two such proverbs and presents them as documented sayings, not as an endorsement of witchcraft accusation, a practice with a well-documented history of real harm that this corpus does not minimise.
Literal: Ẹ̀rù bíbà fear ní ḿ múni pe àjẹ́ is-what-makes-one call witches ní ará ire good-people.
Idiomatic: "It is fear that makes one call witches the good people."
Meaning: People flatter what they fear, calling a dangerous thing by a pleasant name to placate it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "It is wise to curry the favor of fearful or malicious people"
Notes: This proverb documents a euphemistic naming practice for witches directly comparable to the euphemism for Ṣọ̀npọ̀nná discussed in file 71 (Olóde): the feared thing is named by a term of praise or goodwill rather than by a term that risks provoking it.
Source: Owomoyela 982.
Literal: Àjẹ́ ń ké a-witch is-crying-out (proclaiming her presence), òkùnrùn ò paradà the-invalid does-not turn-away; ó lówó ẹbọ nílé he has-money for-sacrifice at-home.
Idiomatic: "A witch proclaims her presence and an invalid does not make way; he must have money for sacrifices at home."
Meaning: A person who does not flee an announced danger must have the means to counter it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One need not fear a scourge for which one has the remedy"
Notes: The proverb assumes a witch's presence can be sensed or announced (ń ké, crying out, is the verb also used of an animal's cry) and pairs that hazard directly with ẹbọ, sacrifice, as its documented countermeasure, linking this file to file 74.
Source: Owomoyela 1324.
Literal: Bí àjẹ́ bá mupo if a-witch drinks-palm-oil, ojú-u rẹ̀ a rọ́ her face/temper will-calm.
Idiomatic: "Once a witch has drunk oil, she calms down."
Meaning: A specific offering pacifies a witch's aggression.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "After one has achieved one's goal, one should relax," applied generally to any placated aggressor .
Notes: Palm oil recurs across this file (compare entry 8) and across file 73 (Èṣù's favoured food) as the standard pacifying substance offered to volatile supernatural or quasi-supernatural agents in this proverb tradition.
Source: Owomoyela 1413.
Literal: Ẹnu-ù mi kọ́ ni it-is-not from-my-mouth wọ́n ti máa gbọ́ that-they will-hear pé ìyá ọba-á lájẹ́ that the-king's-mother is-a-witch.
Idiomatic: "It is not from my mouth that people will learn that the king's mother is a witch."
Meaning: The speaker refuses to be the one who voices a dangerous accusation, however true it might be.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "I will not place myself in jeopardy by speaking dangerous truths; one should not acknowledge or comment on everything one sees"
Notes: This proverb documents the real social danger of naming a specific person a witch, especially one as powerful as a king's mother, and shows the speaker choosing self-protective silence over disclosure, evidence for how seriously such an accusation was treated.
Source: Owomoyela 1542.
Literal: Ìlara àlàjù excessive envy ní ḿ múni gbàjẹ́ is-what-makes-one take-up witching, ní ḿ múni ṣẹ̀ṣọ́ is-what-makes-one become-a-wizard.
Idiomatic: "Excessive envy of others causes one to take on witching and makes one become a wizard."
Meaning: Witchcraft, in this proverb's account, originates in envy rather than in any inherited or involuntary condition.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Too much envy leads to antisocial behavior"
Notes: This proverb offers a specific causal account, envy as the root of witchcraft, distinct from other traditions of thought about witchcraft's origin (inheritance, possession) that lie outside what this proverb collection documents; the corpus notes this as one attested Yorùbá folk-theory among what may be several, not as the settled explanation.
Source: Owomoyela 1612.
Literal: Kàkà kí ó sàn lára ìyá àjẹ́ rather-than mother-witch's-condition improving, ó fi gbogbo ọmọ bí obìnrin she bears all her-children as girls; ẹyẹ ń gorí ẹyẹ bird upon bird (misfortune compounds).
Idiomatic: "Instead of mother witch's affairs improving, all the children she bears turn out to be female; birds climb upon birds."
Meaning: Misfortune compounds rather than resolves, despite whatever power the person is credited with.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Despite all efforts, the fortunes of a person may continue to be bad"
Notes: Notably, this proverb assumes a witch's own power does not exempt her from ordinary misfortune (in this case, a social preference for sons that goes unmet), which cuts against a simple picture of witches as uniformly powerful over their own circumstances.
Source: Owomoyela 1639.
Literal: Ìyá ọba tóó pè ní ìyá ẹbọ the-king's-mother is-fit-to-be-called mother-of-mysteries; ìyá-a baálẹ́ tóó pè ní ìyá àjẹ́ the-chief's-mother is-fit-to-be-called mother-of-witches; Olúṣeye tóó pè ní Olúfàya Olúṣeye is-fit-to-be-called Olúfàya.
Idiomatic: "The king's mother is worthy of the designation 'mother of mysteries'; the chief's mother is worthy of the appellation 'mother of witches'; Olúṣeye [He who makes merry] can also be named Olúfàya [He who tears things apart]."
Meaning: Titles applied to powerful women can carry two faces, a benevolent reading and a threatening one, just as one person's name can be read two ways.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Those brought together by merrymaking may be dispersed by dissension"
Notes: Ìyá ẹbọ, "mother of mysteries," and ìyá àjẹ́, "mother of witches," are both honorific-sounding titles that could apply to a powerful older woman; the proverb treats the two readings, one venerating, one accusatory, as available for the same social position without resolving which is correct.
Source: Owomoyela 3404.
Literal: Bí a bá bẹ ọ̀ṣọ́ if one pleads-with a-wizard, ọ̀ṣọ́ á gbọ́ the-wizard will-listen; bí a bá bẹ àjẹ́ if one pleads-with a-witch, àjẹ́ á gbọ́ the-witch will-listen; ṣùgbọ́n kí-ni-ngó-jẹ kì í gbọ́ but "what-will-I-eat" never listens.
Idiomatic: "If one pleads with a wizard, the wizard should be appeased; if one pleads with a witch, the witch should be appeased; but what-will-I-eat is never appeased."
Meaning: Witches and wizards, unlike hunger, can be reasoned with and satisfied.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One does not assuage hunger with pleas"
Notes: This proverb is a direct data point against treating witchcraft as an implacable force: it ranks hunger as harder to appease than a witch, which places witches within the category of negotiable powers rather than outside it.
Source: Owomoyela 3509.
Literal: Àjẹ́ ò lè jẹ òkú a-witch cannot eat a-corpse.
Idiomatic: "A witch cannot eat the dead."
Meaning: Once a person has died, they are beyond any further harm a witch could do them.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "A person dies only once and, once dead, is safe from witches and enemies"
Notes: The verb "eat" (jẹ) for a witch's harm is the standard idiom in this proverb tradition for witchcraft's mode of attack, consuming a victim's vitality rather than the body itself; this proverb marks death as the one condition that places a person definitively outside that mode of attack.
Source: Owomoyela 3665.
Literal: Àjẹ́ ké lánàá a-witch cried-out yesterday, ọmọ kú lónìí a-child dies today; ta ni ò mọ̀ who does-not-know pé àjẹ́ àná ló pọmọ jẹ? that yesterday's-witch is-who ate-the-child?
Idiomatic: "A witch announced her presence yesterday, and a child dies today; who does not know that yesterday's witch killed the child?"
Meaning: When the evidence points toward an obvious conclusion, one should not avoid drawing it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "When the evidence suggests an obvious conclusion, one should not shy away from it"
Notes: This proverb is a plain example of the inferential logic behind a witchcraft accusation as recorded in the proverb tradition: temporal proximity between a witch's announced presence and a death is treated as sufficient evidence. The corpus records this reasoning as documented Yorùbá proverb-speech; it does not endorse the inference as sound, and readers should understand this and entry 4 as evidence of how such accusations functioned socially, with the real harms that historically followed from them.
Source: Owomoyela 4685.
Literal: Àjẹ́ lápo the-witch licks-palm-oil, ojúu rẹ̀-ẹ́ rọ́ her face/temper calms.
Idiomatic: "The witch licks palm oil and becomes calm."
Meaning: A balm or offering can master even a wild or dangerous disposition.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "A balm masters wild dispositions"
Notes: A near-duplicate of entry 3, recorded independently by Owomoyela at a different point in the collection; both attest palm oil as the specific pacifying substance.
Source: Owomoyela 4686.
Literal: Àjẹ́ ò lólúwa méjì the-witch has-no two-lords, lẹ́hìn-in Poolo besides-Poolo.
Idiomatic: "The witch has no other lord besides Poolo."
Meaning: For every dangerous force, there exists a check or master over it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "For every force there is a check"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote identifies Poolo as the god that exposes and executes witches [S1, note 20]. This is a specific, named counter-power to witchcraft, distinct from and in addition to the masquerade figure Àgán (see the following note) attested elsewhere in the collection with the same executing role [S1, note 45, entry 1571; note 8, entry near line 18760]. Together these notes document that Yorùbá religious cosmology, as recorded by Owomoyela, included dedicated institutions, both divine (Poolo) and masquerade-embodied (Àgán), specifically tasked with checking witchcraft, which corrects any impression that witches operated within the tradition's own worldview as an unchecked force.
Source: Owomoyela 4687, with note 20; compare notes 45 and 8 on Àgán elsewhere in Owomoyela's collection.
Literal: A kì í fi ara ẹni one does-not with one's-own-body ṣe oògùn àlọ̀kúnná make medicine that-requires-pulverized-ingredients.
Idiomatic: "One does not use oneself as an ingredient in a medicine requiring that the ingredients be pulverized."
Meaning: Self-preservation is not optional; one does not sacrifice oneself even for the sake of a remedy.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Self-preservation is a compulsory project for all"
Notes: The proverb assumes a hearer's familiarity with medicine preparation as a physical process involving pulverised ingredients, and uses the absurdity of self-destruction-as-ingredient to make its point about self-preservation generally.
Source: Owomoyela 581.
Literal: Àdó gba ara rẹ̀ tẹ́lẹ̀ could-the-small-gourd save itself first, ká tó fi oògùn sí? before we put charms into-it?
Idiomatic: "Could the small gourd save itself, before we put charms into it?"
Meaning: One should not seek protection from something that cannot protect itself.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Do not seek protection from a helpless person"
Notes: The àdó, a small gourd used as a container for medicinal or protective charms, is here shown as itself needing protection before it can be trusted to protect anything else, which the proverb generalises to human helpers who lack the standing to help.
Source: Owomoyela 693; Owomoyela records a further occurrence at 1297.
Literal: Bí àrùn búburú bá wọlú if a-terrible-epidemic enters-a-town, oògùn búburú la fi ń wò ó terrible-medicine is-what-one uses to-treat-it.
Idiomatic: "If a terrible epidemic descends on a town, it is confronted with a terrible medicine."
Meaning: The remedy is matched in severity to the severity of the disease.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One matches the medicine to the disease"
Notes: The proverb assumes a proportional relationship between affliction and remedy, applied by Owomoyela's gloss to problems generally, extreme measures for extreme problems.
Source: Owomoyela 848.
Literal: Ẹbọ dí a-little sacrifice, oògùn dí a-little medicine, ní ń gba aláìkú là is-what saves the-one-who-does-not-die.
Idiomatic: "A little sacrifice, a little medicine, is what keeps the one who does not die alive."
Meaning: Survival, even for the seemingly invulnerable, depends on combining multiple small remedies rather than relying on one.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One should not place all one's faith in a single solution to a problem"
Notes: This proverb pairs ẹbọ and oògùn explicitly as complementary practices rather than alternatives, evidence that Yorùbá proverb-speech treats sacrifice and medicine as two tools in the same kit rather than as competing systems.
Source: Owomoyela 916.
Literal: Ẹni tó dùbúlẹ̀ whoever remains-lying-down ṣe oògùn ìjàkadì tán has-completed the-charm-for-wrestling.
Idiomatic: "The person who remains prone has perfected the charm for wrestling."
Meaning: Avoiding a contest altogether is treated, ironically, as the most effective charm against losing it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "The wise person forestalls problems"
Notes: The proverb is knowingly ironic: the "charm" it describes is not a supernatural preparation at all but simple avoidance, and the joke depends on the hearer recognising that wrestling charms were a genuine and expected category of preparation this proverb quietly substitutes with common sense.
Source: Owomoyela 964.
Literal: Ọmọdé ò mọ oògùn a-child does-not know medicine, ó ń pè é lẹ́fọ́ he calls it vegetables, kò mọ̀ pé ikú tó pa baba òun ni he does-not-know it-is-what killed his-father.
Idiomatic: "A child does not know medicine, and he therefore calls it vegetables; he does not recognize it as what killed his father."
Meaning: Ignorance of a danger's true nature leads people to treat it casually, sometimes fatally.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "People may call disasters on their own heads out of ignorance" A companion proverb, entry 1217 (Ọmọdé ò mọ oògùn, ó ń pè é lẹ́gùn-ún, "a child does not know medicine and says it is a thorn"), makes the identical point with a different mistaken identification .
Notes: Both proverbs in this pair treat oògùn as potentially lethal and requiring expert recognition, a strong instance of medicine's dual character in this tradition: the same category of preparation that heals can also, unrecognised, kill.
Source: Owomoyela 1216; companion 1217.
Literal: Má bàá avoiding-contact-with-it lóògùn is-the-medicine tọ̀ for-leprosy.
Idiomatic: "Avoiding contact is the only medicine for leprosy."
Meaning: For some afflictions, prevention through avoidance is the only real remedy.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "The best way out of trouble is not to get into it in the first place"
Notes: This proverb names a specific disease, leprosy, and states, within the proverb tradition's own logic, that no curative oògùn exists for it, only preventive avoidance, which is a rare instance in this collection of a limit stated on medicine's power in a medical rather than a moral or spiritual register.
Source: Owomoyela 1683, with Owomoyela's note 60.
Literal: Bí o ní ọ̀pọ̀ oògùn if you-have plenty medicine, tí o ní èké and you have falsehood, kò níí jẹ it will-not work; orí ẹní jẹ ó ju ewé lọ one's-own head works-better-than any herb; ìpín ẹjà ó ju oògùn lọ destiny works-better-than medicine.
Idiomatic: "If you have a great deal of medicine and you are false, it will not work; one's head works better than any herb; one's destiny is far more effective than any medicine."
Meaning: Medicine's efficacy is voided by the practitioner's dishonesty, and destiny outperforms medicine regardless.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Evil intentions make one's medicine ineffective; the best hope lies in one's head and one's destiny"
Notes: This is the clearest statement in the collection that oògùn's power is conditional on the moral character of the person wielding it, and it subordinates medicine to orí, one's chosen destiny, in the same terms the fate proverbs of file 79 use for sacrifice and for other remedies (compare Àyànmọ́ ò gbọ́ oògùn, "Destiny does not respond to medicine," Owomoyela 3505, cited in that file).
Source: Owomoyela 2469.
Literal: Ta ní ń ṣoògùn lódò who is concocting-medicine by-the-river tí lábẹ́lábẹ́ ò gbọ́? that the-lábẹ́lábẹ́-plant does-not-hear-of?
Idiomatic: "Who is concocting a medicine by the river about which the lábẹlábẹ plant is ignorant?"
Meaning: Nothing done at the river escapes the notice of the plants that grow there; secrecy in a shared, observed space is impossible.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Trying to keep someone in the dark about a matter is futile"
Notes: The riverside is a recurring site for medicine preparation across this proverb tradition, consistent with the association of water and certain deities with herbal knowledge documented in 06-orisa/11-osanyin.md and the water-òrìṣà entries of 06-orisa/13-osun.md and 06-orisa/14-yemoja.md.
Source: Owomoyela 2614.
Literal: Ìfúnra diligence/self-exertion loògùn àgbà is-the-medicine of-old-age.
Idiomatic: "Diligence is the medicine of old age."
Meaning: Continued self-exertion, not any preparation, is what keeps an elder capable.
Used when: Used to counsel against premature idleness in later life.
Notes: This proverb uses the "X is the medicine for Y" construction discussed at 02-language/05-owe-proverbs.md (entry 26, Iṣẹ́ ni oògùn ìṣẹ́, work is the medicine for poverty) to redirect "medicine" toward ordinary behaviour rather than any prepared substance, the same rhetorical move that construction makes throughout the wider corpus.
Source: Owomoyela 1889.
Witchcraft is shown as checkable, not omnipotent. Entries 3, 8, 11, and 12 all show witches being pacified, appeased, or subject to a named counter-power (Poolo, and, per Owomoyela's notes, the masquerader Àgán). This corpus records witchcraft accusation as a real and historically consequential social practice (entries 4 and 10 document the inferential logic behind an accusation) without treating witches as an unchecked force within the tradition's own cosmology.
Medicine (oògùn) is morally conditioned. Entry 20 states directly that dishonesty voids a medicine's power, and entry 19 shows a limit on what medicine can do at all. Read against file 74's proverbs on the limits of sacrifice and file 79's proverbs on the supremacy of destiny, this file's medicine proverbs complete a consistent pattern across the sacred proverbs of this section: no single remedial system, sacrifice, medicine, or witchcraft either given or received, operates without limit, and destiny or character routinely outranks all three.
Fifty Yorùbá proverbs on ọ̀run-àpáàdì, orí and àyànmọ́ (fate and destiny), drawn from Owomoyela's dedicated section "On fate (and reciprocity)," showing destiny as chosen before birth, unappealable, yet compatible with real human effort.
Twelve Yorùbá proverbs built on èèwọ̀ (taboo) and related concepts of the forbidden, showing how proverb-speech treats prohibition as binding, socially variable, and in at least one case, lethal to violate.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the ọmọlúàbí ideal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about telling the truth, the mechanics of lying and self-deception, and the value placed on a person whose word is reliable.
Forty-three Yorùbá proverbs on sùúrù, patience, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.