Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on what a person owes the town and neighbours beyond the household, and what interdependence, gossip and collective responsibility look like in practice.
This file collects Yorùbá proverbs about the town, the neighbourhood and the wider circle of people a person deals with outside the household. File 10 in this section covers the agbo ilé, the compound and its lineage; this file picks up where the compound's wall ends, at the level Yorùbá calls ìlú, the town, and the looser bonds of ará ìlú, townspeople, and ojúlùmọ̀, acquaintances and associates. The proverbs here assume a settlement small enough that one person's conduct is everyone's business, and they treat that fact as neither wholly good nor wholly bad: it is simply the condition people reason within.
A recurring move in this material is the claim that no individual is self-sufficient, paired with an equally insistent claim that the individual still answers for their own conduct before the group. The two claims are not in tension for a Yorùbá speaker citing them; they are proverbs for different moments, one to invoke when asking for help, the other when refusing to let someone hide inside a crowd.
Owomoyela's Yoruba Proverbs (University of Nebraska Press, 2005) contains a dedicated section, "On relationships within the community," running from proverb 3151 to 3247 in his numbering . Unlike files 10 and 11 in this section, which drew on Owomoyela's digitised excerpt at yoruba.unl.edu, this book section was never put online: the digitised site covers only Part One of the book (humility, judgment, caution, perseverance, consistency, consideration). The proverbs below are therefore taken from a direct text extraction of the full 2005 book.
That extraction carries a real limitation that must be stated plainly. The book's embedded typeface used custom glyph composition for Yorùbá tone-marked vowels, and the extraction tool failed to recover many of those composed glyphs as ordinary Unicode diacritics. The underdot vowels ọ and ẹ and the underdot consonant ṣ survive intact throughout, but grave and acute tone accents are inconsistently present: some lines extracted with full, correct tone marking, and others lost an accent, or in the worst cases lost a whole vowel along with its accent. Every proverb below was checked by eye against this failure mode. Where a line showed a dropped letter, not merely a missing tone mark, it was cut rather than guessed at, in keeping with the corpus rule against reconstructing a source that cannot be verified. Where a proverb is printed below with tone marking that looks less complete than the polished web-sourced entries in files 10 and 11, that reflects this extraction limitation and not a claim that Owomoyela's actual printed page lacks the mark; the book itself is fully toned. This qualification applies to every entry marked in this file.
Owomoyela supplies numbered explanatory endnotes for some proverbs, keyed by superscript digits in his text; where an endnote adds real information it is folded into the Notes field below and marked as his.
Literal: Ẹní tere one solitary-person èjì tere two solitary-person lọjà á fi ḿkún is-how the-market fills-up.
Idiomatic: The first solitary person, then the second solitary person: thus is the market filled. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A crowd is nothing but individuals arriving one at a time; the collective is built from single contributions.
Used when: Said of a project or a gathering that grows only because people showed up one by one .
Notes: Owomoyela pairs this with a near-identical variant, Ẹní tere, èjì tere, ọ̀pọ̀ wọ̀mù, "the first solitary person, then the second, eventually a multitude," which he marks as a variant of the same saying .
Literal: Ọ̀pọ̀ èèyàn a-multitude-of people kì í wọ Orò does-not enter Orò's-grove kí Orò gbé wọn that Orò carry them-off.
Idiomatic: A multitude of people cannot enter the Orò grove and be carried away by Orò. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: There is safety in numbers even against a power that could destroy a lone person.
Used when: Said to argue for going together into a risky undertaking rather than alone .
Notes: Orò is a Yorùbá masquerade cult and its grove is dangerous ground for the uninitiated encountered alone; the proverb trades on that specific danger rather than on danger in general.
Literal: Ọ̀pọ̀ èèyàn a-multitude-of people ní ń jẹ jànmáà is-what is-called a-congregation.
Idiomatic: It is a multitude of people that is called a congregation. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A single person cannot constitute a gathering; the word itself presumes numbers.
Used when: Said to remind someone that they cannot claim the standing of a group while acting alone .
Notes: Jànmáà is a loanword for a religious congregation, drawn ultimately from Arabic jamā'ah through Islamic contact; its use here for an ordinary crowd shows the word had already generalised in Yorùbá speech.
Literal: Ọ̀pọ̀ ẹṣú the-multitude-of locusts ni fi ya igi lóko is-what tears branch on-the-farm.
Idiomatic: It is by means of their numbers that locusts tear down a branch on the farm. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Strength in numbers, stated as an observed fact about insects rather than argued as a maxim.
Used when: Said to justify pooling effort for a task no individual could manage .
Notes: The proverb picks a destructive image, locusts stripping a farm, to make a point that is used approvingly about human cooperation; Owomoyela's usage note treats the moral as neutral, about capacity rather than about locusts being admirable.
Literal: Ọwọ́ púpọ̀ many hands ní ń pa osùn is-what rubs camwood-powder.
Idiomatic: Many hands are required to rub camwood powder on the body. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Some tasks are done properly only with several people working at once.
Used when: Said to call for cooperation on a job that one pair of hands would do badly .
Notes: Osùn is a red cosmetic powder from camwood, worked into the skin as part of grooming for ceremony; the labour described is real, not simply illustrative.
Literal: Ọwọ́ ọ̀tún wẹ òsì the-right-hand washes the-left òsì wẹ ọ̀tún the-left washes the-right ni ọwọ́ fi ń mọ́ is-how hands become clean.
Idiomatic: The right washing the left and the left washing the right is the way to get the hands clean. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Success in a joint undertaking depends on genuine cooperation, each side doing its part for the other.
Used when: Said to press two parties toward reciprocal effort rather than one carrying the other .
Notes: Compare Bí ọwọ́ bá wẹ ọwọ́, ọwọ́ á mọ́, already recorded in yoruba-owe-proverbs; this is a longer variant naming right and left explicitly rather than leaving the hands unmarked, which sharpens the reciprocity into a named exchange rather than a generic one.
Literal: A kì í bá ẹni gbé one does-not with a-person live ká má mọ ojú ẹni and not know the-person's face.
Idiomatic: One does not live with a person and yet not know how to deal with him or her. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Proximity over time obliges a person to learn how their neighbour actually is, not just tolerate their presence.
Used when: Said of someone who claims ignorance of a well-known neighbour's habits or temperament as an excuse .
Notes: Mọ ojú ẹni, literally to know a person's face, is the standing Yorùbá idiom for knowing someone's true character and disposition, not merely recognising them by sight.
Literal: A kì í bá ẹni tán one does-not with a-person share-kinship ká tún fani nítàn ya and also for-one split thighs.
Idiomatic: One does not claim kinship with a person and yet split the person's thighs. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Recognised kinship, even loose or extended kinship within a community, forecloses certain conduct absolutely.
Used when: Cited against sexual involvement between people who acknowledge a kin bond .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note reads this as a statement of the incest taboo among those who claim relation ; the same prohibition appears from the household side in file 10, entry 35, applied specifically to a sibling.
Literal: A kì í bá ọmọ ẹni ṣeré one does-not with one's-child play kó dókòó ẹgba that-it-become bush of-whips.
Idiomatic: One does not play with one's child and then head for the bush of whips. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Play with a child should stay play; escalating it into punishment betrays the child's trust in the game.
Used when: Said to caution an adult against turning a game abruptly into a beating .
Notes: Owomoyela glosses the deeper point as keeping the play in playing rather than letting a light matter curdle into a quarrel , which extends the proverb beyond parenting to any relationship begun in good humour.
Literal: A kì í yan one does-not refuse àna ẹni one's in-law lódì wrongly.
Idiomatic: One does not refuse to speak to one's family-in-law. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Certain relational obligations must never be dropped simply out of pique.
Used when: Said against someone nursing a grudge against an in-law by cutting off ordinary courtesy .
Notes: More on in-law obligation specifically is collected in file 10 under "Marrying out and marrying in"; this entry states the general principle that spite is not sufficient grounds to abandon a standing social duty.
Literal: Aṣiwèrè èèyàn a-foolish person ní ń kọ̀ àṣẹ àbọ̀ ọjà is-who refuses an-errand returning-from market.
Idiomatic: Only an imbecile refuses to run an errand he or she can do on the way from the market. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Refusing a favour that costs you nothing extra marks a person as unreasonable, not principled.
Used when: Said of someone who declines a trivial request out of sheer contrariness .
Notes: The errand is framed as literally on the way, which is the whole force of the proverb: it targets refusal with no real cost, not refusal generally.
Literal: Aṣùsínà one-who-defecates-on-the-path ní ń fi ìyá rẹ̀ gbèpè is-who brings-down curses on-his-mother.
Idiomatic: A child who shits on the path brings down curses on its mother. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A person's public misconduct is read as evidence against whoever raised them.
Used when: Said when a child's bad behaviour in public exposes the parent to blame .
Notes: This is the community-facing counterpart to the household proverbs on children as evidence of upbringing collected in file 11; here the audience passing judgment is the town, not the compound.
Literal: Aṣenilóde the-one-who-harms-one-outside ò tó tilé does-not reach that-of-home ilé ni wọ́n ti ń ṣeni home is-where they harm-one.
Idiomatic: The-enemy-outside is no match for the enemy at home; one is done in in one's own home. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The person positioned close to you can hurt you more effectively than any outside adversary.
Used when: Said when betrayal or sabotage is traced to someone inside a person's own circle rather than a rival .
Notes: Ilé here reads at the level of household or close circle rather than the physical building, continuing the ambiguity file 10 notes for the word; the proverb belongs equally to community-level betrayal by a close associate.
Literal: Àkèekèé òjòogán the-formidable scorpion fi ìdí jà fights with-its-tail ará ilé ẹni-í fojú ìdí ni one's-household-member disrespects-with the-tail-manner.
Idiomatic: The formidable scorpion fights with its tail; members of one's household belittle one. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Those closest to a person are the ones most likely to show contempt, using the weapon proximity gives them.
Used when: Said of disrespect coming specifically from familiars rather than strangers .
Notes: Owomoyela's endnote explains the scorpion's fighting with its tail rather than its pincers is read as a sign of contempt for the adversary, since the tail is its lesser weapon , which sharpens the proverb: familiars do not even trouble to use their full strength against you.
Literal: Ìbàdàn Ibadan kì í gbé onílé does-not treat-well its-own-resident bí àjèjì like a-stranger.
Idiomatic: The city Ibadan is never as hospitable to its natives as to strangers. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A place, or a person, can show more warmth to outsiders than to its own, which is worth naming as a fault.
Used when: Said of people who are kinder to strangers than to their own friends or relatives .
Notes: The proverb names an actual city, Ìbàdàn, as its example, which is typical of a class of Yorùbá proverbs that use a specific town's reputation to make a general point; whether this reflects a real historical perception of Ìbàdàn hospitality or simply the convenience of the name for the saying is not something Owomoyela's note settles.
Literal: Igi wíwọ́rọ́kú a-crooked-piece-of-wood da iná rú scatters fire èèyàn burúkú an-evil person ba àsè jẹ́ ruins a-feast.
Idiomatic: A crooked piece of wood scatters the fire; an evil person ruins a feast. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: One badly disposed person in a group can spoil the harmony the whole gathering needs.
Used when: Said when a single difficult person derails a shared occasion .
Notes: The firewood image is a plain physical observation, a warped log burns unevenly and throws sparks, used to license the harsher social claim in the second half.
Literal: Ẹnìkan ní ń kẹ́sẹ nílùú only-one-person has-an-amputated-leg in-town tí a fi ń sọ wípé à ń lọ sílùú akẹ́sẹ that we say we-are-going to-amputee's-town.
Idiomatic: Only one person in a town has to have his or her leg amputated before people will say they are on their way to the amputee's town. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: One person's misfortune or disgrace becomes a label attached to everyone associated with them.
Used when: Said of collective reputation damaged by a single member's trouble .
Notes: Owomoyela notes the Yorùbá phrase ìlú akẹ́sẹ is ambiguous between "amputee's town" and "amputees' town," and the proverb trades on that ambiguity, since the whole town is spoken of as though it shared the condition of the one person .
Literal: Bí ẹni ẹni bá kú lókèèrè if a-person's-relation dies far-away à pẹ̀tà-a rẹ̀ wálé one-brings a-relic-of-them home.
Idiomatic: If one's relative dies far away from home, the dead person's relic is sent home. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Distance does not release a person from belonging; some part of them must eventually return to where they are from.
Used when: Said of a wanderer whose ties to home persist however far they travelled .
Notes: The practice of sending back a lock of hair, nail clippings, or a garment for burial rites when a body cannot be repatriated is a real one, and the proverb generalises from that specific custom.
Literal: Bí ikú ilé if death of-home ò pani does-not kill-one tòde ò lè pani that-of-outside cannot kill-one.
Idiomatic: If the death at home does not kill one, the death outside will not. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Security within one's own circle is the foundation of security anywhere.
Used when: Said to reassure or to claim that a person's safety at home guarantees their safety abroad .
Notes: The logic runs from the more dangerous case, the enemy nearby, to the less dangerous one, the enemy far off, an argument pattern several proverbs in this file share with entry 13.
Literal: Bí ó bá bá ojú if it meets the-eye á bá imú pẹ̀lú it-will meet the-nose also.
Idiomatic: Whatever disaster befalls the eye will also befall the nose. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: People and things placed close together share each other's fate.
Used when: Said of associates or neighbours who cannot expect to be spared a disaster affecting the group .
Notes: The image trades on the eye and nose's fixed physical proximity on the face, making the shared fate a matter of position rather than choice.
Literal: Bí orí kan-án bá sunwọ̀n if one head is-good á ran igba it-will benefit two-hundred.
Idiomatic: If a head is blessed with good fortune, it will affect a hundred others. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: One person's success spreads outward and benefits everyone associated with them.
Used when: Said to explain why a community invests in and celebrates one member's rise .
Notes: Orí is both the physical head and the personal destiny a Yorùbá person is understood to have chosen before birth; the proverb can be read as being about luck specifically rather than effort, a reading the corpus does not resolve here.
Literal: Èèyàn ẹni one's-own-people là ń fi ààyè ọmọ hàn is-to-whom one shows a-living child nígbà tó bá dòkú when it becomes-dead gbogbo ayé ní ń yọrí-i rẹ̀ everyone withdraws its-head.
Idiomatic: One presents one's live child only to one's kin; when it dies, the world makes itself scarce. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Good fortune is shared widely; grief and loss reveal who was actually close to you.
Used when: Said when fair-weather associates disappear at the moment of real need .
Notes: The contrast is structural, not accidental: the proverb states as a rule, not merely an observation, that the child is shown to intimates in life and abandoned by the crowd in death.
Literal: Ẹgbò-ó ń kó the-ulcer is-growing iná ń kó the-fire is-growing ohùn èèyàn-án ń kó the-person's-voice is-growing.
Idiomatic: The ulcer grows bigger, the fire glows redder, and one's voice grows hoarse. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Some troubles compound the longer they are neglected, and complaint itself wears out before the problem is addressed.
Used when: Cited to argue for continuous, repeated correction of a problem rather than a single warning .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note reads it as being about ongoing misbehaviour that requires an admonisher's continuous effort , which frames the strained voice as the cost the corrector bears, not a complaint about the wrongdoer alone.
Literal: Ẹni tó bá ọmọ ọlọ́mọ lórí jẹ́ whoever ruins another's child's fortune òrìṣà inú ilé the-god-of-the-home yó bá tirẹ̀ náà jẹ́ will ruin theirs too.
Idiomatic: Whoever ruins the lot of an innocent person will have his own lot ruined by the god of the hearth. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Deliberate harm done to someone else's child invites retribution through household spiritual forces, not simply social disapproval.
Used when: Said as a warning against sabotaging another person's dependent .
Notes: Òrìṣà inú ilé, the household deity, situates the sanction inside the offender's own home rather than in a court or a curse from outside, which makes the retribution feel inescapable.
Literal: Ìjà ló dé it-is-a-quarrel that-arrived lórin dòwe to-song became-proverb.
Idiomatic: It is the breaking out of a quarrel that turns an innocent song into a satirical song. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Ordinary, harmless material takes on hostile meaning once a dispute is already underway.
Used when: Cited when an innocuous remark or old song is read as an attack because a quarrel is already in progress .
Notes: The proverb is a compact statement about how context, not content, supplies the offence, a theme this corpus's yoruba-owe-proverbs also touches on with proverbs about escalation such as Ọ̀rọ̀ sí ọ̀rọ̀ ni ń mú ìjà wá.
Literal: Ọ̀run ń ya bọ́ the-sky is falling kì í ṣe ọ̀ràn ẹnìkan is-not the-matter of-one-person.
Idiomatic: The sky falling down is not any one person's problem. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A danger that threatens everyone is not a burden any single person needs to carry alone.
Used when: Said to calm someone reacting to a general threat as though it were theirs personally to solve .
Notes: Owomoyela pairs this with Ọ̀run ń ya bọ́, ò ń yẹrí; ìwọ nìkan ni?, "the sky is falling and you are ducking your head; are you the only one in danger?", which makes the same point by mocking the person acting as though the general threat were singling them out .
Literal: Ìríni seeing-one ni ìkíni is greeting-one ìkíni ni ìjẹ́ni greeting-one is answering-one.
Idiomatic: To see a person is to greet the person; to be greeted is to respond. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Basic civility is a chain of obligations: seeing triggers greeting, and greeting obliges a reply.
Used when: Cited as the standard for ordinary well-bred conduct in passing encounters .
Notes: The proverb's structure mimics its content, three clauses locking together the way the social duties it describes lock together.
Literal: Ọ̀rọ̀ tó bá ṣe ojú ìlú a-matter that happened before the-face-of-the-town ò fara sin does-not hide itself.
Idiomatic: Whatever happened in the presence of the whole town cannot be kept secret. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: An event witnessed publicly is beyond anyone's power to conceal afterward.
Used when: Said to discourage pointless secrecy about something already common knowledge .
Notes: Ojú ìlú, the face of the town, personifies the community as a single witnessing presence, a construction that recurs across Yorùbá proverbs about public shame and public knowledge.
Literal: "Mo ti wí?" "did-I-say-it?" "Bẹ́ẹ̀ lo wí!" "so-you-said!" Kannáà làwọn méjèèjì ń gbé ẹnu sókè the-same-thing is-what the-two are-raising mouths to-say.
Idiomatic: "What did I say?" "So you said!" Both mouths speak in unison. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: When two people voice the identical claim in the identical way, there is no real disagreement between them to adjudicate.
Used when: Said of a dispute that turns out, on examination, to be no dispute at all .
Notes: The proverb stages a small piece of dialogue and then comments on it, a structure this corpus notes elsewhere, in file 10 entry 28, as a recurring device.
Literal: Kò-gbélé-kò-gbọ̀nà he-does-not-live-in-the-home-and-he-does-not-live-on-the-path ní ń sìnkú àbíkú is-who buries the-àbíkú.
Idiomatic: He-does-not-live-in-the-home-and-he-does-not-live-on-the-path is the one who buries the àbíkú. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The person with no fixed stake or standing in the community is the one left to perform its most unwanted tasks.
Used when: Said of an outsider or drifter called on to do work no established person wants .
Notes: Àbíkú is a child believed to die and be reborn repeatedly to torment the same parents, and its burial rites were treated with particular dread, which is what makes the task in this proverb specifically undesirable rather than merely unpleasant.
Literal: "Ǹgò lè jẹ ìjẹkújẹ" "I-cannot eat rubbish" kì í gbé àwùjọ ọ̀pọ̀ èèyàn does-not live-in a-crowd-of many people.
Idiomatic: "I will not eat rubbish" does not live in a crowd. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Belonging to a crowd requires tolerating things a fastidious person would rather refuse.
Used when: Said to someone too particular to get along in company .
Notes: The quoted refusal is turned into the subject of the sentence, a construction this corpus notes elsewhere as a standing Yorùbá proverb device for naming a type of person by their catchphrase.
Literal: "Ǹgò níí fẹ́, ǹgò níí gbà" "I-will-never-agree-and-I-will-never-concede" ibi tó sùn sí lánàá the-place it-slept at yesterday kò níí sùn síbẹ̀ lónìí it-will-not sleep there today.
Idiomatic: "I will never agree, and I will never concede": wherever he slept last night, he will not sleep there today. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A permanently disagreeable person exhausts every welcome and is forced to keep moving on.
Used when: Said of someone whose intransigence has cost them their standing everywhere they have tried to settle .
Notes: The consequence is stated as a fact about lodging, sleeping somewhere new every night, which makes an abstract character flaw concrete and visible.
Literal: Ò ń wò mí you are-watching me mò ń wò ọ́ I-am-watching you ta ní ṣeun nínú-u wa who is-of-use between us.
Idiomatic: All you do is look at me, and all I do is look at you; which of us is any use to the other? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Two people who each wait for the other to act first accomplish nothing between them.
Used when: Said of a standoff where mutual help is needed but neither party will move first .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note extends this to a general claim about reciprocity: a person who will not lift a hand for another has no standing to expect help in return .
Literal: Ó pa wọ́n tán he has-removed them all nínú ọmọ ataare from-inside the-alligator-pepper-seeds kí là bá tún fi ẹ̀pò rẹ̀ ṣe what would-we now with its-shell do.
Idiomatic: He has removed all the seeds from the alligator pepper; what now can one do with the shell? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Taking the useful part of a shared resource and leaving only the husk for others is a recognisable form of selfishness.
Used when: Said of someone who has taken the best of communal property and left the rest worthless .
Notes: Alligator pepper is a ceremonial and culinary seed pod; the seeds are the valued part and the shell nearly worthless, which is what gives the image its bite.
Literal: Ojú ẹni one's presence là ḿbi aṣeni lóhun is-where one questions the-wrongdoer about-the-matter.
Idiomatic: It is in the presence of witnesses that one challenges the person who caused one injury. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A grievance should be raised openly, in front of others, not settled privately where there is no check on either party's account.
Used when: Said to justify airing a dispute publicly rather than in secret .
Notes: The proverb assumes public confrontation is itself a form of accountability, consistent with the broader pattern in this file of the town as witness and enforcer.
Literal: Ojúlùmọ̀ the-community-of-acquaintances ò níí jẹ́ will-not allow ká na ìyá gbà ẹni that-one flog the-mother of-one's-comrade.
Idiomatic: The community will not let one flog the mother of one's comrade. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Social sanction from the wider circle stops individuals from taking grievances to an extreme the group finds unacceptable.
Used when: Said to explain why a person restrained themselves, or should restrain themselves, from an outrageous act against an associate's family .
Notes: Owomoyela pairs this with the following entry, on the miser sheltered from sleeping rough, and reads both as evidence of communal sanction and communal solicitude working as two sides of one mechanism .
Literal: Ojúlùmọ̀ ò níí jẹ́ the-community-will-not allow kahun ó sun ìgbẹ́ that-the-miser sleep in-the-wild.
Idiomatic: The community will not let the miser sleep in the wild. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Even a person who has given the group no reason to like them still receives its basic protection.
Used when: Cited to argue that communal obligation extends even to the antisocial and ungenerous .
Notes: Set beside entry 36, this shows the same communal restraint working in the miser's favour rather than against an aggressor, which is Owomoyela's own point in pairing them .
Literal: Ìjọ̀ ni tìlú the-assembly is the-town's ọba ló lagbo the-king is-who owns the-mass-gathering.
Idiomatic: The assembly is for the people; to the king belongs the crowd. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Ordinary people may gather informally, but only the king has the standing to convene and command the whole town at once.
Used when: Said to distinguish popular assembly from royal summons, and to mark the king's unique convening power .
Notes: Owomoyela's endnote glosses ìjọ̀ as a gathering for consultation and agbo as a coming-together for a ceremony or celebration in common , which is why the second clause names the king as owner of the more formal, larger occasion rather than of ordinary meeting.
Literal: Ẹnìkan tí ó ní ìlú ò dùn whoever says the-town is-not pleasant kó kó rù let-him pack luggage kó gba oko lọ and take the-bush-path away.
Idiomatic: Whoever says the town is not pleasant should pack his or her luggage and head for the bush. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Anyone who cannot accept the terms of communal life is free to leave it for isolation.
Used when: Said against a chronic complainer about town life and its obligations .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note is blunt: antisocial people deserve to live by themselves in the forest , which is harsher than the proverb strictly states but consistent with its logic.
Literal: Ẹní tó darí the-palm-tree that has-bent its-top igbá-á kọ̀ the-climbing-rope refuses-it.
Idiomatic: The palm tree whose top is bent to the ground is rejected by the climbing rope. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A person who poses no difficulty and offers no resistance draws no serious effort or attention from others.
Used when: Said of someone too easily had, whom others no longer bother to work for or negotiate with .
Notes: The image is practical: a palm wine tapper's rope and effort are aimed at trees worth the climb, so a tree that has already bent low gets no investment of skill.
Literal: Gàbàrí pa Fúlàní a-Hausa-person killed a-Fulani-person kò lẹ́jọ́ nínú there-is-no case in-it.
Idiomatic: A Hausa person has killed a Fulani person; there is no case to answer. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Where the offender and the offended are close enough to be treated as one, an act that would otherwise be a crime is not prosecuted as one.
Used when: Said of harm done within a group so tightly bound that it is not treated as harm done to an outsider .
Notes: Owomoyela's endnote explains that the Hausa and the Fulani, though distinct peoples of northern Nigeria, were regarded by Yorùbá speakers as effectively indistinguishable, which is the premise the proverb needs to make its legal point . The proverb describes an outside perception rather than a Hausa or Fulani self-understanding, and should be read as evidence of Yorùbá categorisation of northern neighbours rather than as a claim about that relationship's actual closeness.
Literal: Túlùú-túlùú town-disperser-town-disperser ẹyẹ Elépe bird of-Elépe.
Idiomatic: Town disperser, the Elépe bird. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A person who carries rumour and gossip from one party to another breaks up the peace of the community.
Used when: Said of a known talebearer, naming them by this bird epithet .
Notes: The reduplicated ideophone túlùú-túlùú names the bird by the effect of its cry or behaviour, dispersal, rather than by a physical description, which is a common pattern in Yorùbá bird names used as character epithets.
Literal: Yánníbọ̀-ó mú erèé rún Yánníbọ̀ has ground the-black-eyed-peas-to-nothing gbẹ̀gìrì-í ṣàn the-black-eyed-pea-stew has-become-watery.
Idiomatic: Yánníbọ̀ chewed up the black-eyed peas; the black-eyed-pea stew is watery. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Someone has consumed or wasted the substance set aside for the group, leaving only a thin remainder for everyone else.
Used when: Said of a person who depletes or ruins resources meant to benefit a whole group .
Notes: Gbẹ̀gìrì is a bean-based soup that needs its beans intact and properly cooked to thicken; naming it watery is a precise complaint about a ruined dish, not a vague one.
Literal: "Yóò bàá ọ" "it-will-strike you" kì í ba ẹnìkan mọ́ does-not strike one-person only.
Idiomatic: "A pox on you!" does not limit its effect to only one person. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A curse or an invoked misfortune, once loosed, spreads to affect people close to its intended target as well.
Used when: Said as a caution against cursing someone, since the consequence is understood to spill over onto their circle .
Notes: The proverb assumes a real, not merely rhetorical, mechanism by which spoken ill fortune propagates through a person's associates, consistent with the weight Yorùbá speech generally gives to uttered curses and blessings.
Literal: Ọlá adìẹ by-the-grace-of the-chicken ni alámọ̀tẹ́kùn-ún fi ḿmu omi nínú agada is-how the-lizard drinks water from-a-potsherd.
Idiomatic: It is by the grace of the chicken that the lizard can drink out of a potsherd. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A person may benefit from provision made for someone else entirely, without contributing anything themselves.
Used when: Said of someone profiting from another's good fortune or another's arrangement, without judgment necessarily attached .
Notes: Owomoyela's endnote explains the potsherd of water is set out for the chicken, and the lizard simply takes advantage of what was never meant for it , which the idiomatic line alone does not make clear.
Literal: Ọmọdé gbọ́n a-youth is-wise Àrẹ̀ gbọ́n the-chief is-wise la fi ń tẹ ilẹ̀ Ifẹ̀ is-how one treads the-ground of-Ifẹ̀.
Idiomatic: A youth is wise, and the chief is wise: that is the principle by which people go about at Ifẹ̀. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A young person's counsel can be worth entertaining alongside a title-holder's, at least in the setting the proverb names.
Used when: Cited to defend taking a junior person's advice seriously .
Notes: Ilé-Ifẹ̀ is the reputed origin city of the Yorùbá people and a seat of major traditional authority, so naming it as the setting where youth and chief are weighed together gives the claim unusual institutional weight.
Literal: Pàlà àkàṣù a-large-loaf-of-corn-meal ní ḿbá gbọọrọ iṣu wá is-what-brings a-long yam.
Idiomatic: A large loaf of corn meal is what comes of a big yam. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Generosity given returns to the giver in kind, later and in its own proportion.
Used when: Said to encourage present generosity by pointing to future recompense .
Notes: Owomoyela's endnote gives the fuller, plainer form of the same saying: Àkàṣù pàlà ní ḿmú iṣu gbọọrọ wá, "a huge loaf of corn meal is what brings a long yam," which states the same causal claim with the terms in the more expected order .
Literal: Pípé là ń pé ọgbọ́n assembling is-what one assembles for-wisdom a kì í pé gò one does-not assemble for-foolishness.
Idiomatic: People assemble to seek wisdom collectively; people do not assemble in order to become stupid. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The purpose of consultation and collective deliberation is to arrive at good sense, and a gathering that produces folly has failed at its own purpose.
Used when: Said to criticise a meeting or council that has produced a foolish outcome .
Notes: The proverb states the norm a gathering is held to, which is why it functions as a rebuke rather than a mere description when a particular assembly falls short of it.
Literal: Sọ̀rọ̀-sọ̀rọ̀ wà the-talkative-one exists bẹ́ẹ̀ ni ẹní máa gbọ́ ḿbẹ likewise the-one-who-will-listen exists.
Idiomatic: There is the loquacious person, and so also there is the person willing to listen. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Communities contain complementary roles, and the presence of talkers implies, and requires, the presence of listeners.
Used when: Said to describe or excuse a talkative person by noting that willing listeners exist to balance them .
Notes: The proverb's flat, paired structure states the complementary roles as simply given rather than as a moral demand on either party.
Three observations specific to this theme.
The unit of accountability shifts outward as the proverbs move from file 10 to this file, but the underlying mechanism does not. Just as file 10 shows the household answering for its members, entries 15, 17, 24 and 44 here show the town, the neighbourhood or the wider circle treating one member's conduct, luck or curse as everybody's business. Yorùbá social reasoning applies the same collective-liability logic at every scale, compound, town, and by extension nation, without needing a separate proverb vocabulary for each.
Cooperation proverbs and self-interest proverbs sit in the same section without embarrassment. Entries 1 through 6 insist that no one is self-sufficient and press toward pooled effort; entries 33, 34 and 39 are considerably more clear-eyed about free-riders, hoarders and the merely lazy. Owomoyela's own arrangement puts them together, which is itself evidence that Yorùbá speakers did not expect a proverb collection on community life to resolve into one consistent doctrine about human nature.
Named places carry real argumentative weight. Entries 15, 38 and 41 build their claims on a specific town, Ìbàdàn, Ilé-Ifẹ̀, or a specific pairing of peoples, Hausa and Fulani, rather than staying at the level of unnamed generality most proverbs in this file use. Reading these as claims about the particular place named, rather than assuming they are freely interchangeable with any town, is closer to how they were likely deployed in speech.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about the household, the lineage, the father's house and the obligations that follow from being born into a particular family.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on the duties of host and visitor, the structural vulnerability of the stranger in a Yorùbá town, and the reciprocal etiquette that hospitality is built on.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on what starts and escalates a quarrel, how an enemy is handled, and the limits of grudge and revenge.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the ọmọlúàbí ideal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about telling the truth, the mechanics of lying and self-deception, and the value placed on a person whose word is reliable.