Thirty-four Yorùbá proverbs on bearing witness, swearing an oath, the difference between what you saw and what you were told, and what happens to the person who swears falsely, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Yorùbá keeps separate words for the several things English collapses into "swear". Ìbúra is the oath, from búra, to swear, and it is a self-directed conditional curse: the swearer calls down a consequence on himself if he lies. Ìmùlẹ̀ is the covenant, literally the drinking of earth, a mutual binding between people who then owe each other something permanent. Ẹ̀rí is testimony or evidence, and ẹlẹ́rìí is the witness, the one who carries it. To jẹ́rìí is to bear witness. These are distinct institutions and the proverbs treat them distinctly.
What makes the oath work in this material is not that lying is wrong but that the thing sworn by will act. Earth hears an oath sworn in her presence and enforces it. Ògún's iron is touched to the head. The oil-ordeal officer presides in a ritual cloth and cannot afterwards find the innocent guilty. The proverbs are unsentimental about all of this: they are more interested in when a claim can be checked and when it cannot, and their sharpest observations are about the unverifiable assertion, the man who claims a coincidence as corroboration, and the fact that no one can testify about what he did in his sleep.
Thirty-four proverbs are given here in four groups: what may be sworn and what may not, the witness and the limits of testimony, the earth and the gods as guarantors, and false swearing and the unverifiable claim. 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.
This file is deliberately narrow. Truth and lying as traits of character, the physics of how a lie collapses, and the standing praise of the honest person are the subject of owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity, and its texts are not repeated here. What follows is truth under the specific pressure of a dispute: what you may swear to, who may testify, and who guarantees the words. The court that receives all of this is described in owe-justice-judgement-court.
Literal: A kì í fi ohun sọ́wọ́ one does-not with a-thing in-the-hand búra swear.
Idiomatic: "One does not hide something in one's hand and yet swear [that one knows nothing about it]."
Meaning: You do not take an oath while holding the object that disproves it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is foolish to tempt fate; the dishonest person exposes himself or herself to the possibility of discovery"
Notes: Búra is the verb for swearing an oath, and the proverb is not a warning against lying but against swearing badly: the fault is the swearer's exposure, since a closed hand is opened. Owomoyela's bracketed completion of what is being sworn is his, and the Yorùbá leaves the content of the oath unstated, which makes the proverb usable of any claim contradicted by something in the claimant's possession.
Literal: Ìgbà ara the-appropriate time là ḿbúra is-when we swear.
Idiomatic: "One swears when it is time to swear."
Meaning: The oath has its occasion and is not to be produced outside it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everything in its proper time"
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss makes the proverb a general saying about timeliness, but the Yorùbá names búra specifically, and the more exact reading is that swearing is a formal act with a moment, not a conversational emphasis. The proverb is evidence that a Yorùbá oath was reserved rather than casual, which is the assumption entry 3 depends on.
Literal: Bí ògbó ẹni ò bá dáni lójú if one's cudgel does-not make-one certain, a kì í fi gbárí wò one does-not use-it to-strike the-head to-test.
Idiomatic: "If one does not trust one's cudgel, one does not try it on one's own head."
Meaning: You do not stake yourself on an instrument you are not sure of.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not swear by something about which one is not certain" Owomoyela cross-references 2020 .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note is the key to the proverb: the striking of one's own head with an object is a form of oath-taking, an act that invites the object to act against you if you are lying. Gbárí is to strike the head. This is the corpus's clearest description of the physical mechanics of Yorùbá swearing, and it explains why entry 4 is a boast rather than a stunt.
Literal: Bí Ògún ẹní bá dáni lójú if one's Ògún makes-one certain, àfi gbárí one goes-ahead and-strikes-the-head.
Idiomatic: "If one is sure of one's Ògún cult object, one taps one's head with it."
Meaning: Confidence in the guarantor is what licenses the oath.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one is sure of one's position, one confidently swears by anything" Owomoyela cross-references 1436 .
Notes: The Ògún here is the iron object of the cult, and swearing on iron is the best-attested Yorùbá oath, still in use in modern Nigerian courts where a litigant may elect to swear on iron rather than on a book. Owomoyela prints entries 3 and 4 as a linked pair and they should be read together: 3 is the caution and 4 is the licence. Compare owe-orisa-tradition-speech and owe-blacksmith-forge-iron.
Literal: Bí a kò bá ṣe fún ilẹ̀ if we have-not done for the-earth, a kì í fi ọwọ́ sọ ọ́ we do-not throw the-hand at-it.
Idiomatic: "If one has done nothing for Earth, one does not swear by it."
Meaning: You do not call as guarantor a power you have given nothing to.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot expect sustenance where one has not cultivated"
Notes: Ilẹ̀, the Earth, is the principal Yorùbá oath-guarantor and the swearing gesture is fi ọwọ́ sọ, to throw or lay the hand toward the ground, sometimes touching it and tasting the soil. Owomoyela's gloss reads the proverb agriculturally, as being about cultivation, which is a real second sense of ṣe fún ilẹ̀ and probably the older one, but the swearing sense is what his own translation makes explicit. Where his translation and his gloss diverge, both are printed here. See entry 17.
Literal: Bí a bá ṣe ohun ńlá if we have-done a-great thing, àfi èpè gba ara ẹni là only a-curse saves oneself.
Idiomatic: "If one has committed a great offense, one frees oneself by swearing [innocence]."
Meaning: The serious offender's last remaining move is the oath.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's greatest duty is self-preservation"
Notes: Èpè is a curse, and its use here is exact: the Yorùbá oath is a curse the swearer lays on himself conditionally, so swearing innocence and cursing oneself are the same act. Owomoyela's translation supplies "swearing" for èpè and his bracketed "innocence" is his. The proverb is coldly descriptive rather than approving, and it is the corpus's admission that the oath can be abused by exactly the person it was designed to catch. Entry 27 states the consequence. See owe-prayer-blessing-curse.
Literal: Ìmùlẹ̀ ò gbọdọ̀ tan ara wọn jẹ covenant-partners must-not deceive one-another; ìmọ̀ ẹnìkan ò yàn one-person's knowledge is-not sufficient.
Idiomatic: "Those who enter into a covenant must not betray one another; one person's counsel is not enough by itself."
Meaning: The covenant creates an obligation of honesty that ordinary relations do not carry.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must not break covenants"
Notes: Ìmùlẹ̀ is literally the drinking of earth, mu ilẹ̀, which names the rite: the parties consume a preparation containing soil so that the earth is inside both of them and will act on whoever defects. The second clause is a separate observation about the need for a second mind, and Owomoyela prints the two without linking them, which is common in binary proverbs of this shape. Compare entry 9 and owe-friendship-trust-betrayal.
Literal: Ọ̀rẹ́ ò fẹ́ irọ́ friendship does-not want lying; awo ò fẹ́ ìtànjẹ the-secret does-not want deception.
Idiomatic: "Friendship does not brook lying; secret covenants do not brook deceit."
Meaning: Both relations fail on the same fault, and neither survives it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Always be true and honest in your dealings with those close to you"
Notes: Awo is the mystery, the thing held in confidence by initiates, and Owomoyela's "secret covenants" reads it as a bound relationship rather than as knowledge, which is defensible since awo names both. The parallel construction makes friendship and the covenant two grades of the same thing, which is how Yorùbá thought generally arranges them. See owe-secrets-gossip-rumour.
Literal: Odídẹrẹ́ ẹyẹ òkun the-parrot is a-bird of-the-sea, àlùkò ẹyẹ ọ̀sà the-àlùkò a-bird of-the-lagoon; bí a bá jẹun gbé though we ate and-forgot, ká má jẹ̀ẹ́ ùngbé let-us not forget what-was-covenanted.
Idiomatic: "The parrot is a bird of the sea, and the kingfisher a bird of the lagoon; even though we may forget that we once partook of the food, let us never forget what we covenanted."
Meaning: Distance and time release you from the meal but not from the undertaking.
Used when: Owomoyela: "However far we may roam, and however long, we should never forget promises made"
Notes: The two birds are set at opposite waters to establish separation, which is the condition the second half then defies. The proverb depends on the Yorùbá distinction between eating together, which creates a temporary bond, and covenanting, which does not lapse. It is one of the few proverbs in the corpus that is a plea rather than an observation.
Literal: A kì í sùn one does-not sleep jẹ́rìí ìdí and-bear-witness-for the-backside.
Idiomatic: "One cannot be asleep and also be able to vouch for one's anus."
Meaning: You cannot testify to what happened while you were not conscious of it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Assert only those things you know for certain"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote is blunt and necessary: a sleeping person cannot be sure whether he farted or not . Jẹ́rìí, to bear witness, is the formal courtroom verb, so the proverb applies a legal standard of knowledge to the most trivial possible fact, and the comedy is the argument. This is the corpus's sharpest statement of the difference between believing something and being able to testify to it, and it is a better epistemology joke than most traditions produce.
Literal: Bí ojú ọmọdé ò tó ìtàn if a-youth's eyes did-not reach the-story, a báà wí gbọ́ let-him at-least hear-it-told.
Idiomatic: "If a youth's eyes do not witness a story, they should be good for hearsay."
Meaning: Where you could not see, take the account of those who did.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one does not witness something, one learns from those who did"
Notes: The proverb grades knowledge into first-hand and reported without disparaging the second, which is the working assumption of an oral culture and of a court that runs on it. Ojú tó, for the eye to reach, is the standard idiom for having been present, and it is the same construction the corpus uses for eyewitness throughout owe-eyes-seeing-blindness. Set against entry 10, which restricts testimony severely, this proverb is the corpus's accommodation.
Literal: A kì í gbélé mọ one does-not stay-at-home and-know ogun tí ò níí dùn the-war that will-not be-pleasant.
Idiomatic: "One does not stay at home and know which battle will be unpleasant."
Meaning: Only the person who was there knows how it actually went.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Only an eyewitness knows the truth of an affair"
Notes: The proverb is stated of war specifically, where the gap between the account and the event is widest, and it is a standing rebuke to the person who reports a battle he did not attend. Compare entry 14, whose whole point is that the war story could not be checked, and owe-war-warrior-battlefield.
Literal: Ojú ẹni in-people's presence là ḿbi aṣeni lóhun is-where we question the-one-who-wronged-us.
Idiomatic: "It is in the presence of witnesses that one challenges the person who caused one injury."
Meaning: An accusation made privately produces nothing, so make it where there are witnesses.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should make a point of exposing one's detractor or injurer to the public"
Notes: Ojú ẹni, the face of people, is the Yorùbá phrase for the public gaze, and the proverb makes it a procedural requirement rather than a preference: the confrontation is staged so that it can be attested. This is the practical companion of entry 22, where a lie is identified by its wish for privacy, and it belongs beside owe-shame-reputation-being-seen.
Literal: Ẹni tí ó pa mẹ́fà lógun Ọ̀la the-man who killed six in the-Ọ̀la war: wọ́n ní "Háà, hà, háà!" they said "Ha, ha, ha!"; ó ní kí wọ́n gbé ọpọ́n ayò wá he said let-them bring an ayò board, ó tún pa mẹ́fà he again took six; ó ní bí ojú kò tó tẹ̀gi he said if eyes did-not reach the-forest, ojú kò tó tilé do eyes not reach the-house?
Idiomatic: "The man who [claimed to have] killed six people during the Ọla war: people exclaimed in disbelief, 'Ha, ha, ha!' He asked them to bring an ayò board, and he won six games. He said, if there were no witnesses for what happened in the secluded forest, aren't there witnesses for what happens in the house?"
Meaning: Where the original claim cannot be witnessed, a demonstration that can be witnessed is offered in its place.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One may not believe what one was not witness to, but what one sees, one must believe; seeing is believing"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote records that the wit of the proverb resides in the play on pa, which in the context of an ayò game means to win but in the context of a war means to kill, so the man settles the argument about whether he could have killed six people by taking six . English can carry the sense or the pun and not both, and Owomoyela's translation preserves the sense by using two different verbs. The proverb is the corpus's fullest treatment of the problem of the unwitnessed claim, and its solution, a substitute demonstration, is a real forensic move. Ayò is the seed-and-board game treated in owe-numbers-counting.
Literal: Ẹni tó bá mọ ìdí ọ̀ràn tẹ́lẹ̀ the-person who knows the-bottom of-the-matter beforehand ní ḿbu àbùjá èké is-who cuts-off the-devious-one's shortcut.
Idiomatic: "It is a person who has prior knowledge of the facts of a matter that can foil a devious person's attempts to skirt them."
Meaning: Only a person who already knows the facts can stop a liar going around them.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Prior knowledge is the surest weapon against lies"
Notes: Àbùjá is a shortcut path, and the figure treats the liar's evasion as a route through country the informed hearer knows better, which is why he can block it. The proverb is about the person examining a witness rather than about the witness, and it is the corpus's nearest thing to a doctrine of cross-examination.
Literal: Ẹni tí Ṣàngó bá ti ojú-u rẹ̀ wọlẹ̀ the-person before whose eyes Ṣàngó entered the-ground ò níí bú Ọya lékèé mọ́ will-not call Ọya a-liar again.
Idiomatic: "Whoever witnesses Ṣango enter the ground [i.e., sees lightning strike] will never again say that Ọya lies."
Meaning: Having seen it, the sceptic stops disputing the testimony of the one who was there first.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Once one has seen the feat a person can perform, one stops being a skeptic"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote gives the legend the proverb rests on: Ṣàngó, king of Ọ̀yọ́, hanged himself when his people turned against him, and the only witness was Ọya, his wife; as the people lamented, lightning struck and they heard his voice saying he had ascended and harnessed lightning, and they were to broadcast Ọba kò so, the king did not hang, whoever saying otherwise being struck by lightning . So the proverb is about a single uncorroborated witness who is vindicated by the phenomenon itself, which is precisely the evidentiary situation entries 10 and 14 worry about. Owomoyela adds that thereafter his followers made certain that if anyone said Ṣàngó did hang, that person's house was secretly torched , which supplies a human mechanism behind the divine one. See owe-orisa-tradition-speech.
Literal: Ojú ilẹ̀ la ṣe dáa in-the-presence of-Earth we consulted-the-oracle tí a ṣe rúu and-made the-offering; bí ẹbọ́ bá máa jẹ́ if the-sacrifice will be-accepted kí ilẹ̀ ó jẹ́rìí let Earth bear-witness.
Idiomatic: "It is in the presence of Earth that one consulted the oracle and offered the prescribed sacrifice; if the sacrifice will yield the promised result, let Earth bear witness."
Meaning: Earth was present for the transaction and can be called to attest to it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The Earth will monitor and enforce oaths sworn in her presence"
Notes: This is the corpus's most explicit statement of Earth's role as guarantor, and the verb is jẹ́rìí, the same courtroom verb used of a human witness at entry 10, which makes Earth a witness in the strict sense rather than a vague sanction. Ojú ilẹ̀, the face of the earth, doubles as "in the open" and as the deity's presence, and the proverb uses both. Compare owe-sacrifice-offering-exchange and owe-ifa-babalawo-divination.
Literal: Èké kú the-devious-one dies, agbẹ́lẹ̀ ó kan òkúta the-grave-digger struck rock.
Idiomatic: "The devious person dies, and while digging his or her grave one strikes a rock."
Meaning: The ground itself declines to receive him, and that refusal is a verdict.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Even the earth bears witness against the wicked"
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss names the mechanism as witness-bearing, which connects this proverb to entry 17: the same Earth that attests an honest transaction refuses an obstruction to the dishonest man's burial. That a rock in a grave was read as a judgement is a specific belief and worth recording as such. See owe-death-ancestors-beyond for the ordinary expectations of burial that this violates.
Literal: Làmílóye Explain-to-me, aláje Ìmọ̀bà the-ordeal-officer of-Ìmọ̀bà; ó ní ilé ló jó ni he asked did the-house burn, tàbí olè ló jà or did a-thief break-in?
Idiomatic: "Làmílóye, the trial-by-ordeal officer of Ìmọ̀bà town, asked, did the house burn down or was it burgled?"
Meaning: The official charged with establishing the facts asks a question that shows he has grasped nothing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Trust a dunce to ask stupid questions"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote records that the name Làmílóye means "Explain to me" or "Make me understand", that aláje is the official who presides at ordeals by boiling oil, and that the two events he names are so far apart as not to qualify as alternative explanations for a crime; he adds that the tone play in the shift from ilé ló jó to olè ló jà is part of the effect . That tone play is the whole craft of the proverb and English cannot carry it; see owe-tonal-wordplay. The entry is also the corpus's direct evidence for the boiling-oil ordeal as a functioning Yorùbá institution with a named office, which entry 20 confirms from the other side.
Literal: A kì í ró aṣọ ajé sídìí one does-not tie the-ritual cloth about-the-waist ká dájọ́ òdodo lẹ́bi and-judge the-righteous guilty.
Idiomatic: "One does not wear the ritual loincloth for presiding over a trial-by-ordeal and judge the righteous guilty."
Meaning: Putting on the office's cloth binds you to the office's standard.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must not violate the oath one is sworn to observe"
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note is what makes this an oath proverb rather than a court proverb: the officer is himself under oath, and his cloth is the sign of it. Òdodo is the righteous or the true, standing here for the person in the right, and ẹ̀bi is guilt, so the forbidden act is naming truth as guilt while dressed in the garment that promises not to. The vestment's binding force belongs with owe-taboo-pollution-forbidden and owe-clothing-nakedness.
Literal: Ààfáà-á sọ̀rọ̀ the-Muslim-priest speaks, òjò-ó kù the-rain rumbles; ó ní Ọlọ́runún jẹ́rìí òun he says God bears-witness-for him.
Idiomatic: "The Muslim priest makes a statement, and thunder rumbles; he says God is bearing him witness."
Meaning: A coincidence is claimed as corroboration by the person it happens to favour.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The opportunist will turn everything to his or her advantage"
Notes: Jẹ́rìí again, and the joke is a category error about evidence: the priest treats an unconnected natural event as attestation, which is exactly what entry 17 licenses in the case of Earth and a sacrifice. The corpus is drawing a line between a guarantor called in advance and a phenomenon retrospectively enlisted. Ààfáà is the Muslim cleric, and the presence of this figure and of ìmàlé elsewhere in the collection records the long establishment of Islam in Yorùbá country before the colonial period. Owomoyela prints a near-identical proverb at 2532 with ìmàlé for the Muslim, which is treated at entry 24 of owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity; the two are variants.
Literal: Irọ́ ni it-is a-lie "Má jẹ̀ẹ́ nìkan ó gbọ́" "Let no-one hear it"; òótọ́ ni it-is truth "Ẹni orí obi" "Anyone at-all you-please."
Idiomatic: "'Breathe not a word of it to anyone' denotes a lie; 'Ask anyone you please' indicates the truth."
Meaning: A claim's attitude to being checked tells you which it is.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is a only a lie that one wants no witness to; one will gladly proclaim the truth"
Notes: The proverb is a working test rather than a moral, and it is the sharpest evidential rule in the file: verifiability, not plausibility, is the discriminator. Owomoyela's usage note uses the word witness, which places the proverb in this file rather than among the general truth sayings. It sits directly against entry 13, where the injured party stages his accusation in public for the same reason.
Literal: Ìtà ata olè the-selling terms of-the-thief là ńta adóhun mọ́ is-what we apply-also to-the-one-who-fabricates-a-charge.
Idiomatic: "The terms with which one sells the thief are the same as those one applies to the false accuser."
Meaning: Fabricating a charge is the same offence as theft and carries the same disposal.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The thief and the perjurer deserve the same fate"
Notes: Ìtà, selling, is a euphemism whose bluntness matters: a convicted thief was disposed of, sold, and the proverb says the false accuser goes the same way. This is the corpus's only explicit statement of a penalty for perjury and it is severe, which is consistent with a system that relies on oral testimony and has no documentary check on it. Owomoyela's "false accuser" translates adóhun, one who fabricates a thing.
Literal: Ẹni tí ó gbọ́n tó ńpurọ́ the-one who is-wise and lies; ẹni tó mọ̀ràn tó ńṣèké the-one who knows-the-matter and dissembles; ẹni tó mọ̀ pé nǹkan ò sí tó ńtọrọ the-one who knows there-is-nothing and still asks; èwo ló sàn nínú àwọn mẹ́tẹ̀ẹ̀ta which is-better among the-three?
Idiomatic: "The person who is wise and yet lies, the person who knows the truth and yet dissembles, the person who knows one has nothing and yet asks for something: which is any good among the three?"
Meaning: Knowing better is what makes each of these an offence rather than a mistake.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The liar, the dissembler, and the one who would embarrass you are all equally evil"
Notes: All three clauses turn on the same structure, tó mọ̀ against tó ń, knowing against doing, which makes the proverb a statement about intent rather than about the acts. That distinction is the one a court needs, and the corpus locates it here rather than in the entries about lying as a habit. The closing question is the standard Yorùbá form for a rebuke the hearer answers himself.
Literal: Elékèé lèké ńyé it-is the-deceiver that the-deceiver understands; oun a bá ṣe ní ńyé ni what one has-done is-what one understands.
Idiomatic: "Only a devious person knows what he or she is about; each person alone is privy to what he or she has done."
Meaning: Nobody outside a person's own head has access to what he actually did.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One can never be sure about a devious person" Owomoyela cross-references 4516 .
Notes: The second clause is a general epistemological claim and the first applies it to the liar, which is the corpus's usual movement from rule to instance. Read with entry 10, the two set the outer bound on testimony: I cannot testify to what I did asleep, and you cannot testify to what I did at all. Everything the court does happens inside those limits.
Literal: A kì í rójú ẹni one does-not see a-person's face purọ́ mọ́ ni and-lie against him.
Idiomatic: "One does not look into the eyes of a person and still tell a lie against that person."
Meaning: The false accusation requires the accused's absence.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is always easier to do evil to people who are absent"
Notes: The proverb is the negative form of entry 13: there the injured man is told to confront in public, here the liar is described as needing privacy from the person he lies about. Rójú, to see the face, is the Yorùbá measure of confrontation, and the proverb assumes it has real restraining force, which is a claim about shame rather than about conscience. See owe-shame-reputation-being-seen.
Literal: Bí a kò bá ṣèké if we have-not been-false, a kì í fi ẹ̀tẹ́ kú we do-not die in-disgrace.
Idiomatic: "If one has not been false, one does not die in disgrace."
Meaning: The disgraceful death is the outcome that identifies the false swearer after the fact.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's honesty is one's vindication"
Notes: Ẹ̀tẹ́ is public disgrace, and the proverb is read backwards in practice: a bad end is taken as evidence of an earlier falsehood, which is how the oath's sanction is understood to operate over time. It is the answer to entry 6, where a great offender escapes by swearing, and it says the escape is temporary. Compare entry 18, where the earth registers the same judgement at burial.
Literal: Bí a kò bá lọ sóko irọ́ if we do-not go to the-farm of-lies, a kì í pa á mọ́ ni lies are-not told against-us.
Idiomatic: "If one does not go to the farm of lies, lies are not told against one."
Meaning: Exposure to false accusation is something a person's own conduct creates.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one does not lay oneself open to lies, one is not lied about"
Notes: Oko irọ́, the farm of lies, treats falsehood as a place a person visits, which is an unusual figure in a corpus that more often treats it as a road or a thread. The proverb's claim is contestable and the corpus knows it, since entry 31 says a stranger with no such conduct is defenceless anyway. Compare the fuller treatment of lying as habit in owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity.
Literal: Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ̀ẹ́ however-long it takes, èké ò múrá the-deceitful-one is-not prepared.
Idiomatic: "It may take a while, but the deceitful person will not be undiscovered."
Meaning: The liar cannot maintain the readiness that concealment requires indefinitely.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Truth will unfailingly triumph in the end"
Notes: The Yorùbá says ò múra, is not girded or prepared, which is more specific than Owomoyela's "will not be undiscovered": the claim is that the liar's guard eventually slips rather than that truth has a power of its own. The gap between his text and his translation is worth keeping visible, since the Yorùbá offers a mechanism and the English offers a moral. Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ̀ẹ́ is a fixed opening the corpus uses for delayed consequences, seen also at entries 40 and 41 of owe-patience-restraint-temper.
Literal: Bí olówó sọ̀rọ̀ if a-rich-person speaks, tó ṣèké and-is-false, ajé a ní kò purọ́ money will-say he did-not lie.
Idiomatic: "If a rich person speaks and lies, money will say he or she has not lied."
Meaning: Wealth functions as a corroborating witness for whatever its owner says.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A rich person can get away with any lie"
Notes: The proverb personifies ajé, money, as the speaker of the corroboration, which puts it in the same grammatical position as the witnesses of entries 17 and 21 and is the sharpest thing the corpus says about who is believed. Read with entry 31, the corpus's account of whose testimony counts is entirely about standing rather than about accuracy. Compare owe-wealth-poverty-money.
Literal: Àjòjì the-stranger ò rẹ́ni jẹ́rìí-i rẹ̀ finds-no-one to-bear-witness-for him.
Idiomatic: "The stranger has no one to bear witness for him or her."
Meaning: A system that runs on the testimony of neighbours has nothing to offer someone with none.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A stranger cannot hope for vindication against an indigene"
Notes: Given in owe-justice-judgement-court as a court proverb, it belongs here too because its subject is jẹ́rìí, the bearing of witness, and it identifies the exact point where the machinery of entries 3 through 22 stops working. The oath cannot help him either, since he has done nothing for the local Earth of entry 5. Compare owe-stranger-guest-hospitality.
Literal: Fẹ̀hìntì kí o rí ìṣe èké sit back so-that you see the-deceitful-one's doing; fara pamọ́ kí o gbọ́ hide yourself so-that you hear bí aṣeni-í ti ńsọ how the-one-who-harms speaks.
Idiomatic: "Sit back and you will see how a devious person operates; conceal yourself and you will hear how those who seek others' destruction speak."
Meaning: Evidence about a liar is gathered by not being visible while he acts.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must be cagey in order to learn the truth about unreliable people"
Notes: The proverb is procedural advice about obtaining testimony and it recommends the opposite of entry 13's public confrontation, which is not a contradiction: 13 is what you do once you have the evidence and this is how you get it. Owomoyela prints a close variant at 2601 beginning Pẹ̀hìndà, turn your back, and the two differ in the opening verb only.
Literal: Wọ́n purọ́ fún ọ they lied to you, o ò gbà you did-not accept-it; o lè dé ìdí òótọ́ can you reach the-bottom of-truth?
Idiomatic: "People lie to you and you do not accept the lie; can you ever know what the truth is?"
Meaning: Rejecting a false account is not the same as obtaining a true one.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Since one can seldom be sure what the truth is, one would save oneself a great deal of grief by not always insisting on it"
Notes: This is the most sceptical proverb in the file and it is directed at the person who prides himself on detecting lies: detection leaves you no closer to the fact. Ìdí òótọ́, the bottom of truth, is the same ìdí construction as entry 15's ìdí ọ̀ràn, the bottom of the matter, and the proverb denies that the ordinary hearer reaches it. Owomoyela's gloss draws a resigned practical conclusion that the Yorùbá question leaves open.
Literal: Ẹni tó sọ pé òkúta a máa dàgbà the-person who said that rocks do grow-old ò purọ́ did-not lie; ẹni tó sọ pé òkúta kì í dàgbà the-person who said that rocks do-not grow-old ò purọ́ did-not lie.
Idiomatic: "The person who says that rocks age does not lie; the person who says that rocks do not age does not lie."
Meaning: Two contradictory accounts of the same thing can both be honest testimony.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Two people can see the same situation in different but equally valid ways"
Notes: The proverb is stated in the vocabulary of perjury, ò purọ́, did not lie, rather than in the vocabulary of opinion, which makes it a claim about testimony specifically: neither witness may be impeached. Placed against entry 1 of owe-justice-judgement-court, which requires both sides to be heard, this supplies the reason: hearing both sides is necessary because both can be true. It is the most philosophically ambitious proverb in either file and the corpus states it without elaboration. See owe-disputed-meanings.
Three observations across these thirty-four proverbs.
The oath in these proverbs is a physical transaction with a specific counterparty, not an appeal to conscience. Entry 3 describes striking one's own head with a cudgel, entry 4 with an Ògún object, entry 5 laying the hand on the ground, entry 7 the drinking of earth that gives ìmùlẹ̀ its name, entry 20 the ritual cloth that binds the ordeal officer, and entry 17 Earth standing present at a sacrifice and available to attest it. In every case something material is engaged and something is expected to act. Entry 6 is the corpus's admission that this can be gamed by a guilty man, and entries 18 and 27 are its reply: the sanction arrives late, at the grave and at the manner of dying. Nothing here appeals to the swearer's inner sense of obligation, which is a real difference from the way the same institution is usually described in English.
The corpus is most interested in the claim that cannot be checked, and it worries at the problem from several sides. Entry 10 says you cannot testify to what you did asleep. Entry 25 says nobody but the actor knows what he did. Entry 14 stages an elaborate substitute demonstration because the original claim was unwitnessed. Entry 21 mocks a man for enlisting thunder as corroboration. Entry 22 offers the practical test, which is whether the speaker wants the claim checked. Entry 33 then says that even successful detection of a lie leaves you without the truth. This is a sustained and unusually careful set of positions about evidence, and it is doing epistemology in a genre not usually credited with it.
Standing determines whose testimony counts, and the corpus says so without pretending otherwise. Entry 30 has money speaking up to corroborate a rich man's lie. Entry 31 leaves the stranger with nobody to speak for him. Entry 23 supplies a severe penalty for false accusation, which is what a system dependent on oral testimony must do, and entry 34 concedes that two honest witnesses may flatly contradict each other. Set beside owe-justice-judgement-court, where backing decides cases and only small thieves are made to kneel, the two files give a single consistent picture: the rules of evidence are stated carefully and the outcome is decided by who you are. The corpus records both facts and leaves the tension where it found it.
Forty Yorùbá proverbs on the lawsuit, the hearing, the judge and the verdict, on what makes a judgement fair and what corrupts it, and on the guilt that arrives before anyone rules on it, 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.
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.
Eighteen Yorùbá proverbs on establishing what happened when accounts conflict, on the oath and the curse as instruments of proof, and on the tells that mark out the guilty party, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
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.