Thirty-eight Yorùbá proverbs in which kinship is argued through the body, blood as substance and as evidence, bone and marrow as the limit of what can be extracted, flesh and the breast, and resemblance as the proof of descent, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it is spoken in.
Yorùbá proverbs about kinship rarely argue from law or from sentiment; they argue from the body. Relatedness is stated as shared blood, as a limb of the same arm, as milk from one breast, or as a face that resembles another face, and the strength of a claim is measured by how close to the body the metaphor sits. That is what this file collects: not family relations in general, which are treated at owe-family-lineage-compound and owe-children-parenthood-inheritance, but the specific move of using flesh, blood, bone and the womb to say who is related to whom and what that obliges.
Thirty-eight proverbs are given here in five groups: blood as substance and as evidence, bone and marrow as the limit of what a thing contains, flesh and the eaten body, the breast and the womb, and resemblance as the proof of descent. The set is worth reading against the family files because it shows the corpus doing something the family files do not: it takes an idea that could be expressed socially and insists on expressing it physically, which is why several of these proverbs cannot be translated without the body coming with them.
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.
A vocabulary note is needed before the entries. Ẹ̀jẹ̀ is blood. Egungun is bone, and the identical-looking eégún or egúngún is the ancestral masquerade, a separate word distinguished in speech by tone and length; the two are not related and the corpus does not pun on them. Ìyèkan is a sibling of the same mother, a category Yorùbá marks and English does not, and it is glossed by Owomoyela as "sibling by the same mother." Ìtan means both thigh and the lineage history recited of a family, and entry 34 turns on the second sense while entry 35 turns on the first.
Literal: Fi ẹ̀jẹ̀ sínú put blood inside, tu itọ́ funfun jáde spit white saliva out.
Idiomatic: "Keep your red blood inside and spit out clear saliva."
Meaning: What is held inside and what is put out are different substances, and they should stay that way.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never show your hand to your enemy or let your words or action reveal your intentions"
Notes: The proverb assumes the body already performs this separation, since blood stays in and saliva comes out, so it recommends nothing that the body is not doing anyway; the instruction is only to extend the same discipline to speech. Owomoyela records that the proverb is also used as a criticism, in the form Ọmọ aráyé fẹ̀jẹ̀ sínú tutọ́ funfun jáde, "Human beings keep their blood inside and spit out clear saliva," said of people who seem friendly and are full of ill will . Entry 2 is the same image turned into a prohibition.
Literal: A kì í fi ẹ̀jẹ̀ dúdú sínú one does-not keep dark blood inside tutọ́ funfun jáde and-spit white saliva out.
Idiomatic: "One does not leave red blood inside and spit out white saliva."
Meaning: The inner state and the outer sign must correspond.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never let people think you love them when in fact you wish them ill"
Notes: The same sentence that is advice at entry 1 is a prohibition here, and the corpus prints both without remark, which is the clearest illustration in this file of the general Yorùbá principle that a proverb is chosen for its occasion rather than held as a doctrine. Ẹ̀jẹ̀ dúdú is literally dark blood; Owomoyela translates it "red," which is correct for the referent, since Yorùbá dúdú covers the dark end of the spectrum including deep red, but the substitution loses the colour contrast the sentence is built on.
Literal: Ọwọ́ epo a-hand of-palm-oil layé ḿbá ni lá the-world joins one in-licking, ayé kì í bá ni láwọ́ ẹ̀jẹ̀ the-world does-not join one in-licking a-hand of-blood.
Idiomatic: "The world will join one in licking fingers dripping with palm oil but not in licking fingers dripping with blood."
Meaning: People will share what is pleasant on your hands and not what is terrible.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People will share your good fortune with you, but not your misfortune"
Notes: Palm oil and blood are the corpus's standard pair of red liquids, one nourishing and one catastrophic, and their visual similarity is what makes the parallel work: the two hands look alike and are treated oppositely. The proverb belongs with the file's later entries on flesh, because it locates fellowship in the specific act of eating from the same hand, and with owe-secrets-gossip-rumour on who stays when trouble arrives.
Literal: Ojú kì í pọ́n ni hardship never presses one ká mu ìṣápá so-that-one drinks red-sorrel; òùngbẹ kì í gbẹ ni thirst never dries one ká mu ẹ̀jẹ̀ so-that-one drinks blood.
Idiomatic: "One is never so desperate that one drinks red sorrel juice; one is never so thirsty that one drinks blood."
Meaning: There is a floor below which need does not push a person, and drinking blood is beneath it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Desperation must never push one beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior"
Notes: The two clauses are graded, since ìṣápá, the red sorrel or roselle, is merely unpalatable as a drink while blood is prohibited, and the proverb puts them on one scale so that the mild case sets up the absolute one. This is the structure noted at entry 33 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, where the corpus states a limit by naming the point past which no circumstance excuses.
Literal: Ìyì lọba fi orí bíbẹ́ ṣe it-is honour the-king makes of head-cutting; ọba kì í mu ẹ̀jẹ̀ the-king does-not drink blood.
Idiomatic: "A king derives only awe from beheading people; the king does not drink blood."
Meaning: The execution produces the king's standing, not his appetite.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One does certain things out of duty and not from desire"
Notes: The denial is doing real work, because the Yorùbá king's power over life carried an accusation of bloodthirst that the proverb is answering, and the answer is that what the office gains is ìyì, honour or awe, an entirely social good. This is the most political proverb in the file and the only one where blood names an office rather than a kinship.
Literal: Olóòlà kì í wọ̀lú the-circumciser does-not enter-a-town kó má fọwọ́ kan ẹ̀jẹ̀ without touching blood with-his-hand.
Idiomatic: "A circumciser does not enter a town and not get his fingers bloody."
Meaning: The trade guarantees the contact; there is no clean version of it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot avoid the fallout of one's profession"
Notes: The olóòlà is a specialist practitioner who also cuts the lineage facial marks discussed at entry 14 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, so the figure in the proverb is the one person in Yorùbá life whose recognised work is to draw blood from other people's children. The proverb neither condemns nor defends him, which is the corpus's usual treatment of specialists, and the same neutrality appears at 3273 where the circumciser's word ends a discussion.
Literal: Ohun gbogbo là ń diyelé everything we put-a-price-on; ṣùgbọ́n kò sẹ́ni tó moye ara-a rẹ̀ but no-one knows the-value of-his-own body; ẹ̀jẹ̀ ò fojú rere jáde blood does-not come-out on-a-good-occasion.
Idiomatic: "Everything has its price, but no one knows his or her own worth; bloodshed never has a good cause."
Meaning: The body is the one thing without a market price, and its blood leaving it is never a good sign.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People should not devalue their own lives by exposing themselves to unnecessary danger"
Notes: Ara here is the body and by extension the self, and the proverb's argument is economic: everything else has been priced, this alone has not, therefore no exchange for it can be evaluated. The third clause makes blood the visible measure of what is being spent, which is why the proverb belongs with this file rather than with the wealth files where its first clause would otherwise place it.
Literal: A pa ìgbín we kill a-snail a ò bá ẹ̀pọ́n we do-not meet red-matter; a pa ìrẹ̀ we kill a-cricket a ò kan ẹ̀jẹ̀ we do-not touch blood.
Idiomatic: "We kill a snail but find no red matter; we kill a cricket and find no blood."
Meaning: Some creatures simply do not contain the thing you are looking for.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot expect to get blood out of a turnip; not all creatures are alike"
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss reaches for an English idiom, blood from a turnip, which flattens the second half of his own note; the Yorùbá makes a taxonomic point, that creatures differ in what they are made of, and only then a point about expectation. The snail and the cricket are both eaten in Yorùbá cooking and both genuinely bloodless, so the proverb is accurate natural history before it is a figure, and it prepares the ground for the bone group below, where the same argument is made about marrow.
Literal: Ẹ̀jẹ̀ ahun the-blood of-the-tortoise ò kún ni lọ́wọ́ does-not fill one's hand.
Idiomatic: "The blood of the tortoise does not fill one's palm."
Meaning: However thoroughly you kill it, there is not much in it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is very little one can expect from a miser"
Notes: The proverb turns on the tonal near-identity of ahun, tortoise, and ahun, miser or stingy person, which is a genuine Yorùbá pun and the reason this animal rather than another is the subject. English can only pick one of the two, so Owomoyela translates the animal and glosses the miser, and the joke that ties them together does not survive. The tortoise as trickster is treated at owe-tortoise-ijapa-trickster.
Literal: Eṣinṣin tí ḿbá ọdẹ rìn the-fly that walks with a-hunter á mu ẹ̀jẹ̀ yó will drink blood to-satiety.
Idiomatic: "A fly that keeps a hunter company will drink blood to its fill."
Meaning: Attach yourself to the person whose work produces what you want and you will get it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The fortunes and misfortunes of one's associates will surely rub off on one"
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss is even-handed about fortune and misfortune, but the Yorùbá is unambiguously about gain: the fly ends up full. The proverb belongs with entry 3, where blood on the hands drives people away, and the pair shows blood functioning as both the thing nobody will share and the thing a dependant will follow you for, depending on whose blood it is.
Literal: Agbárí the-skull ò ní mùdùn-múdùn has-no marrow.
Idiomatic: "The skull has no marrow."
Meaning: The bone that looks like the richest one is the one with nothing inside.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot get blood out of a turnip"
Notes: Mùdùn-múdùn is marrow, a reduplicated form naming the soft interior, and the proverb is anatomically exact: long bones carry marrow and the cranium does not. This is the corpus's standard statement of the impossibility of extraction, and Owomoyela's English idiom in the gloss is the same one he uses at entry 8, which is worth noting because the Yorùbá corpus makes the point twice with two quite different bodies.
Literal: Ẹ̀rú kọ́ lórí the-hoe-shaft has a-head; kò ní mùdùn-múdùn it-has-no marrow.
Idiomatic: "The hoe shaft has a head but no marrow."
Meaning: Having the shape of a thing does not mean having its contents.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot get something from where there is nothing, just as one cannot get marrow from a skull"
Notes: The proverb extends entry 11 from an actual skull to a wooden object that has a part called a head, and the extension depends on Yorùbá naming the tops of tools orí as freely as it names the tops of people, a habit treated at owe-head-face-ori. Owomoyela's own gloss supplies the skull comparison, which confirms he read the two proverbs as a pair.
Literal: Eegun àjànàkú an-elephant's bone: ó há ìkokò lẹ́nu it sticks in-the-wolf's mouth.
Idiomatic: "An elephant's bone: it sticks in the wolf's mouth."
Meaning: The scavenger took a bone scaled to a bigger animal and cannot deal with it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person has overreached himself or herself and is paying the price of folly"
Notes: Bone size is the proverb's measuring instrument, since it indexes the animal it came from exactly, so the wolf's mouth is being compared to the elephant's body by way of a single piece of skeleton. Àjànàkú is the elephant's praise name rather than the ordinary erin, which raises the register and makes the mismatch grander.
Literal: Ọ̀nà ọ̀fun the-passage of-the-throat ò gba egungun ẹja does-not admit fish bones.
Idiomatic: "The throat cannot accommodate fish bones."
Meaning: A passage that takes almost everything has one thing it will not take.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everybody and everything have some limitation"
Notes: The choice of fish bones is exact, because they are the one thing in ordinary Yorùbá diet that reliably catches in the throat, so the proverb picks the single failure case of an otherwise capable organ. Compare entry 15, where a different animal makes the same calculation in advance.
Literal: Bí ìdí ìkokò kò bá dá a lójú if the-wolf's hindquarters do-not reassure it, kì í gbé egungun mì it does-not swallow bone.
Idiomatic: "If the wolf does not have faith in its anus, it does not swallow bones."
Meaning: The animal calculates the exit before committing to the entrance.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not attempt a thing whose repercussions one cannot withstand"
Notes: The proverb is coarse on purpose and the coarseness is the argument: it insists that the consequence be considered in its most concrete and least dignified form. This is the same rhetorical method as the deflation at entry 5 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, where the least dignified bodily fact available is the one selected to make the point complete.
Literal: Eegun tí a bá so mọ́ ajá lọ́rùn a-bone tied around a-dog's neck, kì í ṣán an it does-not chew it.
Idiomatic: "A dog does not eat a bone tied to its neck."
Meaning: The thing placed in your keeping is exactly the thing you may not consume.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One may not take advantage of a person or thing entrusted to one's care"
Notes: The proverb states as a fact about dogs what is a rule about people, which is the corpus's usual method for claims it wants treated as beyond argument, and the claim is empirically shaky, which the proverb does not acknowledge. It is the file's most-quoted item on trusteeship and is regularly cited of guardians, of pawn-holders, and of anyone left in charge of what they want.
Literal: Wọ́n ní kíni wọ́n sọnù they-were-asked what they lost, wọ́n ní ẹran they said meat; wọ́n ní kíni wọ́n ń jẹ they-were-asked what they are-eating, wọ́n ní eegun they said bones.
Idiomatic: "When asked what they lost, they said meat; when asked what they were eating, they said bones."
Meaning: They lost the flesh and are living on what was left attached to it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "In the face of misfortune, one makes do with what one has"
Notes: The exchange form, two questions and two answers, gives the proverb the shape of a small interrogation, and the answers are placed so that the second exposes the first. Bone against meat is the corpus's standard pairing for residue against substance, used again at entry 20 with the elders taking the heart.
Literal: Ajá kú the-dog dies ó fi eegun sílé ayé it leaves bones on-the-earth; adìẹ funfun-ún kú the-white chicken dies ó tu ìhùùhù gbugbu it scatters its-down entirely; ìgbín kú the-snail dies ó gbàgbé ìkaraun it forgets its-shell.
Idiomatic: "The dog dies and leaves bones on earth; the white chicken dies and loses its down; the snail dies and forgets about its shell."
Meaning: Each creature leaves behind the hardest and most characteristic thing it owned.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot take anything with one to heaven"
Notes: The three residues are graded from the most durable to the least attached, bone then feather then shell, and the verb changes with each, from leaving to scattering to forgetting, so the Yorùbá enacts the loosening grip that the English has to state. Compare entry 48 of owe-clothing-nakedness, where the same argument is made about people and the one thing that does follow the body is cloth.
Literal: Àtàrí wo ọ̀run mọmọ the-crown-of-the-head stares at-the-sky fixedly bí ẹni pé kò ní ibẹ̀-ẹ́ rè as-though it will-not go there; oye ojú tó wo ayé however-many eyes have-looked-on the-world ni yó wo ọ̀run that-many will look-on heaven.
Idiomatic: "The skull stares at the sky as though it would not wind up there; every eye that looks upon the earth will also see heaven."
Meaning: The head that studies the sky is going there, and everyone who has seen the world will see the other place.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot avoid one's destiny"
Notes: Àtàrí is the crown or vertex of the head rather than the skull as a whole, and Owomoyela's "skull" imports a mortuary flavour the Yorùbá does not have: the word is used of living heads throughout, as at entry 21. Ọ̀run, translated "heaven," is the sky in the first clause and the otherworld in the second, and the proverb needs both senses at once, which is a piece of ambiguity English has to break apart.
Literal: Àtàrí ni ò jẹ́ it-is the-crown-of-the-head that does-not allow kó òòrùn ó pa àgbọ̀nìsàlẹ̀ the-sun to strike the-lower-jaw.
Idiomatic: "It is the skull that keeps the sun off the chin below."
Meaning: The upper part of the same body shelters the lower without being asked.
Used when: Owomoyela: "As the chin is beholden to the skull, one is beholden to one's benefactor"
Notes: The proverb is the file's clearest statement of the body as a model for obligation: two parts of one head, one shading the other by simple geometry, and the debt follows from the arrangement rather than from any act. Owomoyela prints the grateful version at 3932, Ọpẹ́lọpẹ́ àtàrí tí ò jẹ́ kí oòrùn ó pa àgbọ̀nìsàlẹ̀, "Much gratitude is due the skull that kept the sun from beating down on the chin below," glossed as counsel to be grateful for small mercies in adversity , and cross-references the two .
Literal: Orí lẹ̀gbọ́n ara the-head is-the-senior-sibling of-the-body.
Idiomatic: "The head is an elder sibling to the body."
Meaning: Within one body the head holds the rank a first-born holds within one family.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Certain entities are unquestionably superior to their associates"
Notes: This is the file's pivot, because it applies the kinship vocabulary in the opposite direction from everything else here: instead of using the body to explain kinship it uses kinship to explain the body. Ẹ̀gbọ́n, senior sibling, is a real and consequential Yorùbá status carrying rights of precedence, so the sentence is not decorative. Orí in its other sense, the personal destiny, is treated throughout owe-head-face-ori, and the proverb's force is increased by the reader hearing both.
Literal: Ìgbà ara ḿbẹ lára when there-is flesh on-the-body là ḿbùú tà is-when we cut-some to-sell.
Idiomatic: "It is when there is a surfeit of flesh on the body that one cuts some of it for sale."
Meaning: What is given away comes off a body that had more than it needed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One makes a gift only of one's surplus"
Notes: The image is deliberately alarming and the proverb is used unalarmingly, of ordinary generosity, which is the point: it insists that every gift is subtracted from a body. Ara is both flesh and self, so the sentence says at once that one sells one's meat and that one sells part of oneself, and no English word carries both.
Literal: Ṣàkì ń ṣe bí ọ̀rá tripe behaves-as-though it-were fat, egungun ń ṣe bí ẹran bone behaves-as-though it-were meat.
Idiomatic: "The tripe presents itself as fat; the bone presents itself as meat."
Meaning: Two lesser parts of the carcass are passing themselves off as the parts people want.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not pretend to be what one is not"
Notes: Yorùbá butchery names the cuts finely and prices them differently, so the proverb depends on a real market hierarchy in which ọ̀rá, fat, and ẹran, flesh, sit above ṣàkì, tripe, and bone. The imposture is possible because the lesser parts come off the same animal, which is what makes this the file's precise counterpart to the resemblance proverbs at entries 33 to 38: shared origin is exactly what makes a false claim plausible.
Literal: Àgbà ní ń jẹ ọkàn it-is elders who eat the-heart; ọmọdé ní ń jẹ ara ẹran it-is the-young who eat the-flesh of-the-animal.
Idiomatic: "Only elders eat the heart; the youth eat the flesh."
Meaning: The distribution of a carcass follows the distribution of rank.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Each station has its particular obligations"
Notes: Meat division by seniority is a real Yorùbá practice and the proverb is reporting a rule rather than inventing a figure, which is why Owomoyela's gloss speaks of obligations rather than privileges: receiving the heart marks a person as answerable. Ọkàn is both heart the organ and heart the seat of courage and will, the sense used throughout owe-stomach-appetite-inner-person, so the elders are eating the part named for the faculty they are supposed to exercise.
Literal: Ọ̀ràn ò bá ojúgun trouble has-not met the-shin, ó ní òun ò lẹ́ran it says it has-no flesh.
Idiomatic: "The shin has not yet got into trouble, and therefore it says it has no flesh."
Meaning: The thinly covered part claims exemption on the grounds of having nothing to lose, and has not yet been tested.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Until one gets into trouble, one always thinks one is invulnerable"
Notes: The shin is the least padded bone in the body and the most painful to strike, so its claim to have no flesh is both true and irrelevant, which is the joke. Owomoyela prints 4252, Iwájú lojúgun ń gbé, "The front part is where the shinbone lives," glossed of the person whose leadership qualities put them ahead of everyone , and the pair shows one anatomical fact serving as both a boast and a delusion.
Literal: Òjòwú the-jealous-woman ò lẹ́ran láyà has-no flesh on-the-chest.
Idiomatic: "The jealous woman lacks flesh on her chest."
Meaning: Jealousy consumes the body of the person holding it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Excessive jealousy eats up the jealous"
Notes: The proverb states as a physical fact what it means as an emotional one, which is the corpus's habitual method, and it locates the wasting in the chest because àyà, chest, is the seat of the emotion in Yorùbá idiom. Òjòwú is specifically the jealous co-wife, so the proverb sits inside the polygynous household described at owe-family-lineage-compound, and its harshness is directed at a woman about whom the corpus has a large and unsympathetic vocabulary.
Literal: Aláàárù tí ń jẹran the-hired-carrier who eats meat ń jẹ awọ orí-i rẹ̀ is-eating the-skin of-his-own head.
Idiomatic: "A hired carrier who eats meat eats skin off his skull."
Meaning: The porter's meat is paid for out of the head that carries the loads.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The laborer eats of his sweat; the laborer with a luxurious taste pays for it with his sweat"
Notes: The image is literal about the trade, because a carrier's loads ride on his head and wear the skin there, so the meat he buys with the fee is bought with that specific tissue. Owomoyela prints the butcher's version at 4499, Alápatà tí ń jẹran, ẹran orí-i rẹ̀ ló ń jẹ, "The butcher who eats meat eats the skin off his skull," glossed "One eats of one's labor," and cross-references the two . The pair puts the same sentence on two men who handle meat for a living.
Literal: Ọ̀já kan ò dàbí ọ̀já òróòro no sash is-like the-red sash; òkè kan ò dàbí Òkè e Gbadi no hill is-like Gbadi Hill; ọmú kan ò dùn bí ọmú ìyá ẹni no breast-milk is-as-sweet-as one's own mother's.
Idiomatic: "No sash compares with the red sash; no hill compares with Gbadi Hill; no breast milk is as delicious as one's mother's breast milk."
Meaning: In each class one member is beyond comparison, and in the class of mothers it is one's own.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Certain things have no rivals in value"
Notes: The proverb builds to the mother through two lesser incomparables, a cloth and a landmark, so that the final claim arrives already licensed by two the hearer will grant. Ọmú is both the breast and its milk, and the ambiguity is productive here: the sentence says both that no other milk tastes like hers and that no other body is hers. Compare entry 30, where the same word carries an obligation rather than a preference.
Literal: Ọlọ́mú the-owner-of-the-breast, that-is the-suckling dá ọmú ìyá ẹ̀ gbé alone lifts its mother's breast.
Idiomatic: "Each child must lift its mother's breast by itself."
Meaning: Nursing is not a thing anyone can do on the child's behalf.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Every person to his or her own resources"
Notes: The proverb is the corpus's earliest instance of a self-reliance argument, since it locates the first non-delegable act at the breast, and it is used of adults exactly because the infant case is beyond dispute. Ọlọ́mú, owner of the breast, names the child rather than the mother, which reverses the ownership English would assume and is the reason the translation has to say "each child."
Literal: Fi ọmú fọ́mọ take the-breast to-the-child, fi ọmọ fọ́mú take the-child to-the-breast; bí ọmọ́ bá ti mu ọmú if the-child has-nursed, kò bù ṣe is-that not enough?
Idiomatic: "Take the breast to the child, take the child to the breast; as long as the child is nursed, is that not all that matters?"
Meaning: Two procedures reach the same result, so the argument about which is unnecessary.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is no point in arguing over trifles"
Notes: The Yorùbá states the two options in identical words with the nouns swapped, which makes the symmetry visible on the page in a way the English cannot reproduce, and the closing question does the work of a shrug. This is one of the corpus's few proverbs about procedural disputes, and it settles them by naming the outcome, which is the same method used at entry 44 of owe-ears-hearing-mouth.
Literal: Bí òkété bá dàgbà when the-giant-rat grows-old, ọmú ọmọ-ọ rẹ̀ ni ḿmu it-is its child's breast it-nurses-from.
Idiomatic: "When the giant rat becomes old, it sucks from its child's breast."
Meaning: The direction of feeding reverses with age.
Used when: Owomoyela: "In one's old age, one depends on one's children"
Notes: This is the Yorùbá statement of the reciprocity that makes children an old-age provision, and it makes it in the strongest available form by putting the parent back at the breast, which is more than dependence: it is a return to the infant position. The òkété, the African giant pouched rat, is chosen because it is a familiar prolific breeder, and it carries no trickster associations that would complicate the reading.
Literal: Ọmọ kì í forí pẹkàn a-child does-not come head-first kó mú bàbá ẹ̀ dání and-bring its father with-it; iye ọmọ lọmọ ḿmú lọ it-is the-child's own self the-child takes along.
Idiomatic: "A child does not emerge from a womb with its father in tow; the child emerges all by itself."
Meaning: Birth is a solitary arrival and establishes no company.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A child who gets in trouble cannot depend on his father to bear the consequences"
Notes: The proverb is the file's argument that the body which creates kinship does not thereby create liability, and it is made at the one moment when parent and child are least distinguishable. The image is deliberately absurd, a man delivered alongside his son, and the absurdity is the proof. Compare entry 21 of owe-children-parenthood-inheritance on what a parent does and does not owe.
Literal: Ìbí-ìrẹ-ẹ́ sẹ̀nù your pregnancy is-lost ò ń yọ̀ you are-rejoicing; o ò mọ̀ pé irú ẹ ló ń rá you do-not know that it-is your-own kind that is-perishing.
Idiomatic: "Your pregnancy aborts and you rejoice; you are not aware that it is your kind that is perishing."
Meaning: The loss you are relieved by is a subtraction from your own line.
Used when: Owomoyela: "What in the short run is a boon might turn out in the long run to be a disaster"
Notes: Irú ẹ, your kind or your sort, is the term the proverb uses instead of a kinship word, which makes the argument one about type and continuation rather than about a particular child, and that is the sense in which this proverb belongs to a body-and-kinship file rather than to a file about children. The corpus does not moralise about the woman's relief and the proverb corrects her arithmetic rather than her feeling.
Literal: Àbíjọ being-born-alike là ḿmọ ìtan is-how we know the-lineage-history.
Idiomatic: "It is through resemblance that one knows those who are related."
Meaning: The face is the evidence from which descent is read.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People show their affinity by their similar behavior or appearance"
Notes: Ìtan is the recited lineage history, the narrative a family holds of itself, and the proverb says that narrative is checked against faces, so the oral record and the body are treated as two sources for one claim. The word is a homophone of ìtan, thigh, which entry 35 uses, and the corpus does not appear to pun on the pair. Àbíjọ compresses bí, to give birth, and jọ, to resemble, into a single nominal that English needs a clause for.
Literal: A kì í bá ẹni tan one does-not be-related-to a-person ká tún fa ni nítan ya and-also split the-person's thighs.
Idiomatic: "One does not claim kinship with a person and yet split the person's thighs."
Meaning: Kinship and sexual access are mutually exclusive claims on the same body.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Sexual activities between blood relatives are taboo"
Notes: Bá ẹni tan, to be related to, is the ordinary verb of kinship and appears in the corpus wherever a relationship is being asserted, including at entry 8 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance where men manufacture it to reach a beautiful woman; here it is the thing that forecloses access rather than opening it. The proverb is the corpus's plainest statement of the incest prohibition and it makes it anatomically rather than legally, which is the file's characteristic move.
Literal: Gángán ló bá ni tan it-is barely that he is-related to-one; kò ṣé é fi ọ̀bẹ rẹ́ it cannot be-cut with-a-knife.
Idiomatic: "His relationship to one is very slight; even so it cannot be severed with a knife."
Meaning: A thin kinship is still not a thing that can be cut.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The most distant relative still deserves to be acknowledged and treated as such"
Notes: The proverb imagines kinship as a physical connection thin enough to be cut and then denies that it can be, which is a more interesting claim than simple insistence on family loyalty: it says the tie is not the kind of thing a knife acts on. This is the corpus's answer to the many proverbs that treat distant relatives as a burden, including 2803 on numerous relatives producing numerous quarrels .
Literal: Apá lará the-arms are-one's-kin; ìgbọ̀nwọ́ niyèkan the-elbows are-one's-same-mother-siblings.
Idiomatic: "One's arms are one's relatives; one's elbows are one's siblings by the same mother."
Meaning: The parts of your own body occupy the positions kin are supposed to occupy, and they are the ones that will act.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Even more reliable than one's relatives and siblings are one's own resources"
Notes: This is the best known proverb in the file and its structure is exact: the arm, a general limb, is matched to ará, the general kin term, and the elbow, a specific joint of that arm, is matched to ìyèkan, the specific same-mother sibling, so the anatomical nesting reproduces the kinship nesting. Owomoyela prints the palm version at 2823, Àtẹ́wọ́ lará; ìgbọ̀nwọ́ niyèkan, "One's palms are one's relatives; one's elbows are one's siblings of the same mother," with the same gloss . The proverb is treated for its self-reliance argument at owe-hands-feet-working-body; it is given here because its method is to substitute body parts for relatives, which is this file's subject.
Literal: Ogún pa ará war killed the-kin, odò-ó gbé iyèkan lọ the-river carried the-same-mother-siblings away, àjọbí sọnù lọ́nà Ìkòròdú the-co-born were-lost on-the-road to-Ìkòròdú, a ò tún rẹ́ni bá rìn mọ́ we no-longer find anyone to-walk-with, àfi ẹni tí ń tan ni except those who deceive one.
Idiomatic: "Death took one's kin; the river carries off one's siblings; one's blood relations disappear on the road to Ìkòròdú; one has nobody left to keep one company save those intent on deceiving one."
Meaning: Every category of relative has been removed by a different agent, and what is left is not kin at all.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An expression of the statement that one has lost all those one could rely on"
Notes: The three losses are graded by the closeness of the relation and by the specificity of the cause, from ará, general kin taken by war, through ìyèkan, same-mother siblings taken by the river, to àjọbí, the co-born, lost on a named road. Owomoyela translates ogún as death; the word is war, and the mistranslation is worth noting because the proverb otherwise names three different mechanisms and his English gives only two. The final clause turns on tàn, to deceive, standing where tan, to be related, has stood throughout the file, which is a bitter closing pun that English cannot carry.
Three things stand out across these thirty-eight proverbs.
The body is used to make kinship claims non-negotiable. Entry 36 says a thin relationship cannot be cut with a knife, entry 35 forbids sex with a relative by describing the act on the body rather than naming the rule, and entry 37 places relatives at the positions of arm and elbow. In each case a social fact is restated as an anatomical one, and the restatement is the argument: you can dispute an obligation and you cannot dispute a limb. The same technique appears in owe-hands-feet-working-body, where cooperation is argued from the two hands washing each other.
Blood is evidence more often than it is substance. Only entries 4, 5 and 6 treat blood as a physical thing being spilled or drunk. Elsewhere it is a marker: what is kept inside at entries 1 and 2, what is on the hands at entry 3, what is absent from the snail and the tortoise at entries 8 and 9. The corpus is markedly less interested in blood as the stuff of descent than English idiom would predict, and where it does argue descent it goes to resemblance at entries 34 to 38 rather than to blood at all.
The extraction proverbs are all about disappointment, and they are the corpus's model for it. Entry 11 says the skull has no marrow, entry 12 says the hoe shaft has a head and no marrow, entry 8 says the snail has no red matter and entry 9 says the tortoise has almost no blood. Four proverbs make one point, that some containers hold nothing of what you want, and the reason the corpus repeats it in four bodies is that it is the shape of most requests for help. This is the same argument the wealth files make about the poor relative, and it is offered here without blame: the skull is not withholding.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about the household, the lineage, the father's house and the obligations that follow from being born into a particular family.
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.
Fifty-one Yorùbá proverbs in which death, burial, mourning and the masquerade of the ancestors carry the argument, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it 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 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.