Thirty-six Yorùbá proverbs on hunger, greed, and the inside of a person as the place where feeling and counsel are kept, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Yorùbá locates the inner life in the abdomen. Inú is the inside of a person, and it does the work that English distributes between heart, mind, stomach and gut: it is where happiness is (inú dùn, the inside is sweet), where anger and grief are (inú bàjẹ́, the inside is spoiled), where a secret is kept, where counsel is taken, and where food goes. Ikùn is the belly proper, the organ of hunger and of appetite. Because these are the same region of the body, a Yorùbá proverb about a full stomach is frequently also a proverb about a settled mind, and the corpus does not treat that as a pun.
This file collects thirty-six proverbs in three groups: hunger and what it does to a person's standards, greed as a named vice with its own vocabulary, and inú as the interior that is kept closed. The third group is the philosophically substantial one, because it holds a consistent Yorùbá position that the inside is private, defensible, and not owed to anyone.
The proverbs are given in Owomoyela's texts and translations . Owomoyela's parenthetical usage notes are the basis of the Used when lines; where the wording of a note is his, it is quoted. Anything marked as the compiler's is this corpus's own and carries lower confidence.
Owomoyela prints full standard orthography with tone marks and subdots, and his texts are reproduced here as printed . He attaches no informant to any proverb, holding that proverbs are communal property , so the texts are attested but not localised or dated.
Literal: Ebi ò pa mọ̀le hunger did-not seize the-Muslim ó ní òun ò jẹ àáyá he said he-does-not eat red-colobus-monkey; ebi pa Súlè hunger seized Suleiman ó jọ̀bọ he-ate monkey.
Idiomatic: "The Muslim is not hungry, and he vows he will not eat a red colobus monkey; hunger gripped Suleiman, and he ate a monkey."
Meaning: A dietary principle held on a full stomach does not survive an empty one.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A desperate person is seldom finicky"
Notes: The proverb names a Muslim and then names him again as Súlè, a Yorùbá form of Suleiman, so the general case and the particular man are the same person and the second clause catches him. Monkey is not lawful food under the dietary rules he began by citing, which is what makes the collapse total rather than partial. The proverb is a piece of observation about scarcity, not a polemic about Islam, and it has an exact structural twin in entry 2.
Literal: Ebi ò pa Jèṣà hunger did-not seize the-Ìjẹ̀ṣà-person ó lóun ò jẹ̀kọ Ọ̀yọ́ he said he-does-not eat Ọ̀yọ́ corn-loaf; ebi pa ọmọ Obòkun hunger seized the-child-of-Obòkun ó jẹ orí he ate orí.
Idiomatic: "The Ijeṣa person is not hungry, and he rejects corn loaf prepared by an Ọ̀yọ́ person; when hunger gripped the son of Obokun [an appellation for Ijeṣa people], he ate orí [the Ọ̀yọ́ name for corn loaf]."
Meaning: The refusal was about pride of origin, and hunger dissolved it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is when one is not desperate that one can afford to be choosy"
Notes: The joke is lexical and is the whole proverb: ẹ̀kọ and orí are the Ìjẹ̀ṣà and Ọ̀yọ́ names for the same corn loaf, so the man who refused it under one name eats it under the other. Owomoyela's bracketed glosses are his, and without them the pun is invisible in English. Obòkun is the ancestral figure from whom Ìjẹ̀ṣà descent is reckoned, so the proverb also touches inter-Yorùbá rivalry of the kind seen at entry 22 of owe-ears-hearing-mouth.
Literal: Bí a kò bá láyà arìndọ̀rìndọ̀ if we have-not a-stomach that-is-strong, a kì í jẹ aáyán we do-not eat cockroaches.
Idiomatic: "If one's stomach is not immune to nausea, one does not eat roaches."
Meaning: Do not undertake what you lack the constitution to finish.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should avoid things one cannot stomach"
Notes: English and Yorùbá happen to agree here that the seat of what one can bear is the abdomen, which makes Owomoyela's "cannot stomach" a rare case of an idiom surviving translation intact. Àyà is properly the chest, and its use for nerve or courage is standard, so the Yorùbá is closer to "if we have not the chest for it."
Literal: Ebi ń pa mí hunger is-killing me ọlọ́ṣẹ ń kiri the-soap-seller hawks-about; ìgbà tí ng ò wẹnú when I have-not washed the-inside ng ó ṣe wẹ̀de how shall-I wash the-outside?
Idiomatic: "I am hungry, and the soap seller hawks her wares; when I have not washed my inside, how can I wash my outside?"
Meaning: The interior claim comes first and the presentable exterior can wait.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must order one's priorities sensibly"
Notes: Wẹnú, to wash the inside, is the ordinary Yorùbá way of saying to eat, and it is the hinge of the proverb: eating and washing are the same verb applied to two surfaces. This is the file's clearest evidence that inú and ìta, inside and outside, are a working pair in ordinary speech rather than a philosopher's distinction.
Literal: Àgbọ́kànlé the-thing-one-relies-on ò pa ni lébi does-not kill one with-hunger.
Idiomatic: "A thing in which one reposes one's trust does not make one hunger."
Meaning: What you have genuinely secured will feed you.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's reserve guarantees one's supplies"
Notes: Àgbọ́kànlé is a compressed nominal from gbọ́kàn lé, to place the heart upon, so the thing relied on is named by the act of relying. The proverb reads as reassurance and is also used as a test: if it does let you go hungry, it was not that.
Literal: A kì í dùbúlẹ̀ ṣubú one does-not lie-down and-fall.
Idiomatic: "One does not fall from a prone position." Owomoyela's gloss: "Hunger cannot make one faint and fall if one goes to sleep"
Meaning: Lying down is the defence against collapse, so a person with nothing to eat sleeps.
Used when: Said of the strategy of the destitute. Owomoyela's parenthetical supplies the hunger reading, which is not visible in the Yorùbá alone .
Notes: Without Owomoyela's gloss this looks like a general proverb about safety in low positions, and it circulates that way too. The hunger reading is grimmer and more specific: sleep is being recommended as a way of not fainting, which is a practice of famine rather than a figure of speech. Confidence on the hunger reading: it rests entirely on Owomoyela's note.
Literal: Fi ọ̀ràn sínú put trouble inside pete ẹ̀rín prepare laughter; fi ebi sínú put hunger inside sunkún ayo weep satiation.
Idiomatic: "Keep your troubles inside and laugh heartily; keep your hunger hidden and pretend to weep from satiation."
Meaning: Hunger is to be concealed behind its opposite.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should keep one's woes to oneself and show a happy face to the world"
Notes: Sunkún ayo, to weep satiation, is a deliberate absurdity: one does not weep from having eaten enough, and the instruction is to perform even that. The proverb is the sharpest statement in the file of the inú doctrine developed in the third section, and it puts hunger squarely among the things that belong inside.
Literal: Òní ohun tí àgbà jẹ tẹ́lẹ̀ ikùn there-is something the-elder ate to-line the-belly kó tó sọ pé before he-said that èyí yó òun this will-satisfy him.
Idiomatic: "The elder ate something to line his stomach before he said that what [little] was before him would suffice to sate his hunger."
Meaning: The moderation on display was made possible by provision made in private.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The prudent person prepares himself or herself for all eventualities"
Notes: The proverb is affectionate rather than accusing: the elder's restraint at table is real and so is the meal he had beforehand. It belongs with entry 7, since the preparation is another thing kept inside, and with the dignity proverbs at entries 31 to 37 of owe-head-face-ori, where standing has to be maintained by arrangements nobody sees.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà covetousness baba àrùn father of-disease.
Idiomatic: "Covetousness, father of all diseases."
Meaning: Greed is the chief of the afflictions.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is no disease like greed"
Notes: Baba used this way names the foremost instance of a category rather than a parent, the construction discussed at entry 9 of yoruba-owe-proverbs. Ọ̀kánjúwà is analysed as kán ojú wá, roughly "the eye is sharp in seeking," so the Yorùbá word for greed is built on the eye while the proverbs about its effects are built on the belly. Compare entry 10, which uses the identical frame for thievery.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà covetousness baba olè father of-thievery; àwòrò ǹṣoṣò-ó the-bug-eyed-one wo ohun olóhun stares-at another's property má ṣẹ̀ẹ́jú without blinking.
Idiomatic: "Covetousness, father of thievery; bug-eyed greedy person stares at another person's property without blinking."
Meaning: Theft begins as an unbroken look at what belongs to someone else.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Covetousness leads to stealing"
Notes: The second clause supplies the mechanism the first asserts, which is the same two-part structure as entry 2 of owe-iwa-character. The unblinking stare is the diagnostic sign, and it returns the vice to the eye that its name is built on.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà kì í mu ẹ̀jẹ̀ ẹlòmíràn the-greedy-one does-not drink another's blood; ẹ̀jẹ̀ ara ẹ̀ náà ni ḿmu it-is his-own blood he-drinks.
Idiomatic: "The greedy person does not drink other people's blood; he drinks only his own."
Meaning: Greed consumes the greedy person rather than their victims.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Greed recoils on the greedy"
Notes: The proverb corrects an expectation it first raises: blood-drinking is the language of witchcraft accusation in Yorùbá, and the proverb concedes the image while redirecting the target. The structure is the same reversal performed at entry 31 of owe-iwa-character, where the detractor spoils himself.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà-á bu òkèlè the-greedy-one takes a-morsel, ojú ẹ̀-ẹ́ la mi his eyes stream water.
Idiomatic: "A greedy person takes a morsel of food, and tears gush from his eyes."
Meaning: The greedy man's own haste hurts him at the moment of getting what he wanted.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Greed has its pains also"
Notes: Òkèlè is the hand-moulded ball of pounded food swallowed whole, so the tears are the physical consequence of taking too large a mouthful, and the proverb is exact about the mechanism. The greedy man is not being punished by anyone; he is choking.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà-á pín the-insatiable-one receives ẹgbàá fà twelve-thousand nínú ẹgbàá je out-of fourteen-thousand; ó ní kí wọ́n pín ẹgbàá kan tó kù he says let-them share the-remaining two-thousand, bóyá igba iwó tún lè kan òun perhaps two-hundred cowries might reach him too.
Idiomatic: "The insatiable person receives 12,000 cowries out of 14,000; he asks that the remaining 2,000 be shared, [so] perhaps 200 of them will come to him."
Meaning: Having taken almost all of it, he calls for the remainder to be divided so that he can have a share of that too.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Greed knows no limits"
Notes: The arithmetic is the joke and it has to be followed for the proverb to land: he holds six-sevenths and proposes an equitable division of the last seventh. The cowrie denominations date the text to the cowrie period, and the Yorùbá numerals ẹgbàá fà and ẹgbàá je are built by multiplication on two thousand.
Literal: Wọ̀bìà-á yó tán the-greedy-one having-been-satisfied fully, ó pe ẹgbẹ́ ẹ̀ wá he calls his companions to-come.
Idiomatic: "The greedy person fed to satiation, and he summons his friends."
Meaning: Having been fed himself, he brings others to be fed at the same expense.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The freeloader always seeks opportunities to take as much as possible from his or her benefactor"
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss reads the summons as further exploitation. The Yorùbá permits a more generous reading, in which the man shares his good fortune, and the proverb's use in practice depends entirely on the tone of delivery. Confidence on the gloss: medium.
Literal: Ohun gbogbo everything kì í tó olè is-never enough-for a-thief.
Idiomatic: "Nothing ever satisfies a thief."
Meaning: The appetite that produces theft is not one that quantity closes.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Greed and covetousness are the marks of a thief"
Notes: Tó is to be sufficient, and the negative construction places the fault in the man rather than in the supply. Compare entry 16, which makes satiation the natural end of appetite, and is therefore in direct tension with this one.
Literal: Màá jẹ iṣu I-will eat yam; màá jẹ èrú I-will eat a-slice; ibi ayo lómọ the-place of-satiation is-where-it-ends.
Idiomatic: "I will eat a whole yam; I will also eat a slice of yam; satiation ends it all."
Meaning: However the appetite boasts, it stops at fullness.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The greediest appetite will not survive satiation"
Notes: The two opening clauses are a boast in escalating and then deflating order, whole yam followed by a mere slice, and the third clause dismisses both. Read against entry 15 the corpus is holding two positions at once: appetite has a natural limit, and in a thief it does not.
Literal: Ajàkàṣù the-eater-of-large-lumps ò mọ̀ bí ìyàn-án mú does-not know how famine grips.
Idiomatic: "The person who eats large helpings does not care that there is a famine."
Meaning: Someone consuming freely is not registering the general scarcity.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Greed knows no thrift"
Notes: Ajàkàṣù is an agent noun built on eating lumps of food, one of the many Yorùbá single words for a kind of eater that English can only render as a phrase. Owomoyela's "does not care" translates ò mọ̀, does not know, and the difference between not knowing and not caring is material to how the proverb is used: it can excuse or it can accuse.
Literal: Kó-tán-kó-tán finish-it-finish-it lajá ń lá omi is-how a-dog laps water.
Idiomatic: "Swiftly-consumed-swiftly-consumed is the way a dog laps up water."
Meaning: Some creatures take what is in front of them at maximum speed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said of people who attack good things with excessive greed"
Notes: The reduplicated kó-tán-kó-tán carries the rhythm of the lapping and is the proverb's whole sound-effect, which no English rendering keeps. Owomoyela's hyphenated English is an attempt to preserve the shape rather than a translation of separate words.
Literal: "Mo yó" ń jẹ́ "mo yó" "I am-full" means "I am-full," "mo kọ̀" ń jẹ́ "mo kọ̀" "I decline" means "I decline"; jẹun ǹṣó eating without-restraint, àgbà ọ̀kánjúwà ni is the-chief of-greediness.
Idiomatic: "'I am full' means 'I am full'; 'I decline' means 'I decline'; eating with abandon, that is the father of all greediness."
Meaning: The polite refusals exist and are meant, and a person who never uses them is greedy.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not accept every invitation to the table"
Notes: The proverb is unusual in insisting that Yorùbá table formulas be taken at face value, since much Yorùbá hospitality speech is ritual and expects to be overridden. Its argument is that the vocabulary for stopping exists, so failure to stop is a choice.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà àgbà a-greedy elder ní ń sọ ara ẹ̀ dèwe is-who turns himself into-a-child.
Idiomatic: "It is an avaricious elder that turns himself into a child."
Meaning: Appetite ungoverned in an elder forfeits the standing that age confers.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An elder who cannot control his appetite asks to be treated like a child"
Notes: In Yorùbá seniority the elder eats first and is served best, so greed in an elder is not a breach of a rule against taking but a breach of the composure that justifies the privilege. This belongs with the elder-and-disgrace proverbs at entries 31 to 34 of owe-head-face-ori.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà àgbẹ̀ the-insatiable farmer tí ń gbin òwú who plants cotton sóko àkúrọ̀ on-a-swamp-farm.
Idiomatic: "[It is] an insatiable farmer who plants cotton on a farm by the stream."
Meaning: Wanting the extra crop, he puts it where it cannot grow and loses the ground as well.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Greed sometimes makes people work against their own interests"
Notes: Àkúrọ̀ is low, water-retaining land suited to rice and vegetables and unsuited to cotton, so the proverb is agricultural fact before it is a moral. It is the one proverb in the greed group where the vice is punished by the work itself rather than by other people, and it belongs equally with the farming file.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà alágbàà the-insatiable chief-of-the-masqueraders ní ń garùn wo eégún is-who cranes-the-neck to-watch a-masquerader.
Idiomatic: "It is an insatiable chief of the masqueraders' cult that stands on tiptoe to watch a performing masquerader."
Meaning: The man who owns the whole institution is craning like a spectator.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is unseemly to be too greedy, especially when everything is at one's disposal anyway"
Notes: The alágbàà heads the egúngún cult and has standing access to everything the masquerade involves, which is what makes the craning both greedy and undignified. The proverb needs the institution to work at all, and it is a good example of a saying that cannot be understood from the words alone.
Literal: Ayé ò ṣé-é fi inú hàn the-world is-not fit to-show the-inside-to; bí o lọ́gbọ́n if you have wisdom, fi sí kùn ara à ẹ rẹ put it in your-own belly.
Idiomatic: "The world does not deserve to be trusted; if you have a store of wisdom, keep it in you."
Meaning: What you know is kept in the body, not distributed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People of the world are not reliable; whatever wisdom one wishes to pass on should be reserved for one's own use"
Notes: The instruction is literally to put wisdom in the belly, ikùn, which is the same organ that receives food in the first section of this file. The proverb is the plainest statement of the inú doctrine: the interior is a store, and storing is a defensive act. Compare entry 24, which recommends the inside as an interlocutor rather than a strongbox.
Literal: Bá inú sọ speak-with the-inside, má bá èèyàn sọ do-not speak-with people; èèyàn ò sí people are-not-there; ayé ti dèké the-world has-become false.
Idiomatic: "Counsel with your inside, not with people; [good] people are no longer to be found; the world has turned false."
Meaning: Deliberation is to be conducted internally because there is no one safe to conduct it with.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is no one to trust but oneself"
Notes: Èèyàn ò sí, people are not there, is a strong Yorùbá idiom meaning that no real people, in the sense of trustworthy ones, remain; Owomoyela's bracketed "[good]" makes that explicit. This is the corpus at its most isolating, and it should be read against the many proverbs on interdependence collected in yoruba-owe-proverbs, entries 14 to 19, which assume the opposite. The corpus supplies both and the speaker chooses.
Literal: Àgádágodo padlocks ò fi inú han ara-a wọn do-not show the-inside to-one-another.
Idiomatic: "Padlocks do not share their secrets with one another."
Meaning: Things whose function is closure do not open even to their own kind.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Some secrets one should not divulge to others"
Notes: The image is exact: a padlock's mechanism is its inside, and a second padlock is no more entitled to it than anything else. The proverb refuses the argument from fellow-feeling, which is the argument most often used to extract a confidence.
Literal: Àlá tí ajá bá lá the-dream that a-dog dreams, inú ajá ni ń gbé inside the-dog is-where it-lives.
Idiomatic: "Whatever dream the dog dreams remains inside the dog."
Meaning: What cannot be told stays where it arose.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Keep your own counsel"
Notes: The dog is chosen because it cannot speak, so the containment is a fact of its nature rather than a discipline, and the proverb holds that up as the model. This is the gentlest of the concealment proverbs and the only one that does not imply that the world is hostile.
Literal: Ọbẹ̀ kì í gbé inú àgbà mì stew does-not shift-about inside an-elder.
Idiomatic: "A stew does not slosh around once inside an elder."
Meaning: What is entrusted to a person of standing stays still and does not come back out.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An elder should know how to keep confidences"
Notes: This is the file's central proverb, because it makes the identity of eating and keeping explicit: a secret told to an elder has been swallowed, and the test of an elder is that nothing sloshes. The physical claim is also observational, since a full stomach is quiet, and the proverb converts that directly into a rule about discretion.
Literal: Inú burúkú a-bad inside làgbà ń ní is-what an-elder has, àgbà kì í ní ojú burúkú an-elder does-not have a-bad face.
Idiomatic: "An unpleasant inside is what a venerable elder should have; a venerable elder should not have an unpleasant mien."
Meaning: An elder may feel what he likes and may not show it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not permit the way one really feels to push one into unseemly behavior"
Notes: The proverb licenses the feeling and forbids the face, which is a precise division of the person into a private interior and a public surface. It is the theoretical statement of what entry 7 recommends as practice, and it should be set against owe-head-face-ori entry 38, where managing the face too carefully is itself a failure. The corpus is not consistent on this, and the inconsistency is load-bearing.
Literal: Àgbàlagbà á ṣe inú kẹrẹndẹn an-elder makes the-inside smooth; èyí tó máa ṣe what he-will do ḿbẹ níkùn-un rẹ̀ is in his-belly.
Idiomatic: "An elder shows a smooth belly to the world, but what he will do is known to him."
Meaning: The intention is formed and held internally, and the surface gives nothing away.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Be a person of thought and action, not of words"
Notes: Kẹrẹndẹn is an ideophone for smoothness or blankness. The proverb differs from entry 28 in what is being hidden: there it is feeling, here it is a plan, and the second is the more consequential concealment because it concerns what is about to happen to other people.
Literal: Isó inú ẹ̀kú a-fart inside the-masquerade-shroud, à-rá-mọ́ra the-thing-to-be-endured-against-the-body.
Idiomatic: "The fart within a masquerader's shroud [is] something to be endured."
Meaning: Some discomforts occur inside a covering you cannot leave.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The insult one cannot escape from, one has to endure"
Notes: The ẹ̀kú is the full costume of the egúngún masquerader, which encloses the wearer entirely and cannot be removed in public without breaking the masquerade. The proverb is comic and exact, and the compressed nominal à-rá-mọ́ra names the category of thing that must simply be borne.
Literal: Bí a bá fi inú wé inú if we compare inside with inside, iwọ là ń jẹ bile is-what we eat.
Idiomatic: "If we compare notes with others, we wind up eating bile."
Meaning: Measuring your interior life against another's produces bitterness.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Comparing fortunes with others is likely to leave a bitter taste in one's mouth"
Notes: Iwọ is bile, the bitterest substance the body produces, and it is located in the same region as inú, so the proverb's consequence comes out of the same organ as its subject. This is the file's tightest joining of the interior-as-feeling and the interior-as-gut.
Literal: Ọlọ́gbọ́n ọmọ a-wise child ní ḿmú inú-u bàbá ẹ̀ dùn is-who makes his-father's inside sweet; aṣiwèrè ọmọ a-foolish child ní ḿba inú ìyá ẹ̀ jẹ́ is-who spoils his-mother's inside.
Idiomatic: "A wise child gladdens the heart of his father; an imbecile child saddens the heart of his mother."
Meaning: The child's conduct registers directly in the parent's interior.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Every parent would prefer a wise child to an idiot"
Notes: The two idioms inú dùn and inú bàjẹ́, discussed in this file's opening, appear here as an exact antithesis, which is the clearest demonstration in the corpus that they are a matched pair. The distribution of father to the good outcome and mother to the bad is a feature of the text and is not explained by it; the closely parallel Proverbs 10:1 makes the same split, and the caution stated at entry 38 of yoruba-owe-proverbs about biblically-shaped proverbs applies here. Confidence on origin: contested.
Literal: Kì í jẹ́ kí etí ẹni di what does-not let one's ear be-blocked kì í jẹ́ kí inú ẹni dùn does-not let one's inside be-sweet.
Idiomatic: "Whatever keeps one from being deaf to certain things keeps one from being happy."
Meaning: The openness of the ear is paid for by the unrest of the inside.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Learn to turn a deaf ear to certain things for the sake of your peace of mind"
Notes: This proverb also appears at entry 17 of owe-ears-hearing-mouth and is repeated here because its two organs belong to two files: it is the hinge between them, and it states the transaction the corpus assumes throughout, that what enters at the ear is digested in the belly.
Literal: Arọ tí kò lẹ́sẹ̀ nílẹ̀ a-cripple who has-no legs on-the-ground ẹ́ lọ́gbọ́n nínú has wisdom inside.
Idiomatic: "A cripple who has no legs to stand on has wisdom inside him."
Meaning: What is missing outside is compensated inside.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whatever one's handicaps, one will have some asset"
Notes: The proverb sets nílẹ̀, on the ground, against nínú, inside, as the two places a person's resources can be, and awards the second to the man denied the first. It is the most generous use of inú in the file, and it is the standard Yorùbá proverb quoted in support of someone written off on the evidence of their body.
Literal: Àgùntàn ń wò sùn-ùn the-sheep stares blankly; ọgbọ́n inú pé egbèje the-wisdom inside amounts-to one-thousand-four-hundred.
Idiomatic: "The sheep stares blankly, but its cunning stratagems number 1,400."
Meaning: A vacant exterior is not evidence about the interior.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Looks are deceptive"
Notes: Egbèje, 1,400, is a round large number in Yorùbá counting rather than a tally, the same convention noted at entry 49 of owe-iwa-character. The sheep is chosen precisely because it is the proverbial stupid animal, so the proverb is arguing against its own most obvious example.
Literal: Tinú ọ̀bọ what-is-inside the-monkey lọ̀bọ́ ń ṣe is-what the-monkey does.
Idiomatic: "The monkey is clever, but it is following its own strategy." Translator: Owomoyela, rendering the clause within the fuller proverb Alákataḿpò ó ṣe bí ọ̀bọ ò gbọ́n; ọ̀bọ́ gbọ́n; tinú ọ̀bọ lọ̀bọ́ ń ṣe .
Meaning: What looks like foolishness from outside is a plan being executed from inside.
Used when: Owomoyela glosses the full proverb: "It matters nothing to be derided as long as you know what you are doing and why"
Notes: The full text opens with alákataḿpò, the man with the crossbow, who takes the monkey for a fool. The final clause is quoted here because it circulates independently and states the principle: tinú, the contraction of ti inú, means "that which is of the inside," and the sentence says a creature acts out of its interior. It is the file's closing position, that the inside is not merely a store or a hiding place but the source of action.
Three things run through these thirty-six proverbs.
Eating and knowing are the same operation performed on the same organ. Entry 4 calls eating "washing the inside," entry 23 instructs a person to put wisdom in the belly, and entry 27 tests an elder's discretion by whether stew sloshes in him. This is not metaphor layered on anatomy; it is a single vocabulary that English has to split into two. The literal glosses in this file are the only place the unity is visible.
Concealment is the recommended default, and the corpus knows what it costs. Entries 23 to 30 all counsel keeping the interior shut, several of them on the express grounds that no one is trustworthy. Entry 24 states that there are no people left. Yet entry 34 and entry 35 use the same interior as the place where a discounted person's real capacity sits, waiting to be underestimated. The inside is both a bunker and a reserve, and which one a given proverb means depends on whether the speaker is defending or predicting.
Greed has a technical vocabulary that the belly proverbs do not. Ọ̀kánjúwà is a named vice with a cluster of proverbs to itself, an etymology in the eye, and a set of characteristic behaviours: staring, craning, taking too large a morsel, dividing the remainder. Hunger by contrast has no vice attached to it. The corpus treats being hungry as a circumstance that reveals what a person's principles were worth, as at entries 1 and 2, and treats wanting more than one's share as a fault of character. That distinction is consistent across the file and is worth noting by anyone tempted to read Yorùbá proverbs on appetite as ascetic.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Forty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the head as body part and as destiny, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Thirty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the ear as the organ of instruction and intelligence, deafness as a figure for obstinacy, and the mouth as the organ that eats, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sixty-seven Yorùbá proverbs on hunger, eating, restraint at table and the difference between a full house and an empty one, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it is spoken in.
Forty-nine Yorùbá proverbs on the hand and the foot, the body's two instruments of labor, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Thirty Yorùbá proverbs on the eye as the organ of witness and judgment, and on blindness as both a literal condition and a figure for folly, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.