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.
Ẹjọ́ is the Yorùbá word for a case, a lawsuit, a dispute brought before someone with the standing to settle it. An ẹlẹ́jọ́ is the person who owns that case, the litigant. To dájọ́ is to cut the case, which is what Yorùbá says for delivering a judgement, and the person who does it is the onídàájọ́, the judge. The court in these proverbs is not a building. It is the compound head hearing his people, the chief hearing a quarter, the ọba or ọlọ́jà hearing the town, and the arbitration is public, oral, and conducted by someone who is also a neighbour.
The proverbs on this institution divide into two unequal parts. A small number lay down procedure, and they are unusually clear about it: both sides must be heard, the witness must not take a side, the aggrieved party is not the person to arbitrate, bribery blinds the judge. A much larger number describe how the thing actually goes. The judge is in league with the adversary, the first person to judge you becomes your enemy, the powerful are never called to account, the innocent fill the sacrificial grove. The corpus states the standard and then documents the failure to meet it, and it does both without apology.
Forty proverbs are given here in five groups: what a fair hearing requires, the judge and what corrupts him, guilt and its own evidence, who is beyond the court's reach, and the fault that lies elsewhere. 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, except where an internal marker such as a named town or an institution allows dating.
Three proverbs central to this subject are treated elsewhere in this corpus and are not repeated here: A kì í gbọ́ ẹjọ́ ẹnìkan dájọ́ (609), Etí, gbọ́ èkejì kí o tó dájọ́ (2490) and Ẹ̀ẹ̀mejì letí ọlọ́jà ńgbọ́rọ̀ (2493) are given in owe-ears-hearing-mouth, where the ear rather than the court is the organising subject. They are the corpus's fullest statement of the both-sides rule, and entries 1 and 2 below should be read against them.
Literal: A-gbẹ́jọ́-ẹnìkan-dájọ́ he-who-hears-one-person's-case-and-judges, òṣìkà èèyàn the-wicked one of-people.
Idiomatic: "He-who-decides-a-case-after-hearing-only-one-side [is] the dean of wicked persons."
Meaning: Judging on one side of a story is not an error of procedure but a moral offence of the first rank.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Justice requires considering both sides of a case"
Notes: The Yorùbá makes the offender a compound name, A-gbẹ́jọ́-ẹnìkan-dájọ́, which is the form used for permanent identities rather than single acts, so the man is not described as having judged badly once but as being that kind of person. Òṣìkà is the wicked person, and Owomoyela's "dean" renders a superlative construction, the wicked among the wicked. This proverb also appears at entry 20 of owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity, where it is read as a case of dishonest process rather than of court procedure.
Literal: Àṣàwí ẹjọ́ ẹnìkan-án the-doctored-telling of one-person's case ṣàre is-innocent.
Idiomatic: "The doctored case of the only side heard in a dispute is always just."
Meaning: A one-sided account will always sound right, which is precisely why hearing it alone proves nothing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one's opponent has no say, one's case is just by default"
Notes: Àṣàwí is a telling that has been worked on, arranged for effect, and Owomoyela's "doctored" is exact. Ṣàre here is from àre, acquittal or being in the right, so the verb means to come out innocent. Entry 1 condemns the judge and this proverb explains the mechanism that traps him: the single account is not merely incomplete, it is actively persuasive. This proverb appears at entry 37 of owe-speech-silence-tongue in its capacity as a saying about how speech is shaped.
Literal: Ẹlẹ́rìí ní ńyanjú ẹjọ́ it-is a-witness that resolves a-case; ẹlẹ́rìí kì í ṣe elégbè a-witness is-not a-supporter.
Idiomatic: "It is a witness that clears up a case; a witness is not a partisan."
Meaning: The witness's whole value lies in not being on anyone's side, and a partisan witness is not a witness at all.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People called to bear witness in a case should be impartial"
Notes: Elégbè is one who joins a side, the word used for a chorus that answers a lead singer and for a faction in a quarrel, so the proverb sets the witness against exactly the role that a friend called to court would naturally play. The definition is normative rather than descriptive, and entry 15 below shows the corpus's view of how often it holds. This proverb is treated as a truth-telling text at entry 23 of owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity; here it is read for what it says about the office of the witness, and it is developed further in owe-truth-in-dispute-and-oath.
Literal: A kì í ṣe ẹlẹ́jọ́ ní one does-not make the-case-owner into "Ngbọ́?" "Do-I-hear?"
Idiomatic: "One does not ask the main litigant, 'How about it?'"
Meaning: You do not ask the party to the dispute to confirm the account of the dispute.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Do not expect impartial witnessing from an interested party"
Notes: Ngbọ́ is a listener's interjection, roughly "is that so", the sound a hearer makes to signal assent while a story is told, so what the proverb forbids is treating the litigant's agreement as corroboration. The Yorùbá is compressed almost past translation: ṣe ẹlẹ́jọ́ ní "Ngbọ́" is literally to make the litigant into an "is-that-so", to use him as the confirming voice. English cannot carry that without the paraphrase Owomoyela supplies.
Literal: Ẹni tí ọ̀ràn-án dùn the-person whom the-matter pains, a kì í fi ọ̀ràn lọ̀ọ́ one does-not take the-matter to-him for-settlement.
Idiomatic: "The person most aggrieved is not the one to ask for mediation in the case."
Meaning: The person the case hurts most is disqualified from settling it, however well he knows it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A partisan is not a good judge"
Notes: Dùn is the ordinary verb for pain and for grief, so the disqualification rests on injury rather than on interest in the legal sense, which is a slightly different test from the English one. The proverb is the arbitration counterpart of entry 3: the witness must not take a side, and the arbitrator must not already have been hurt.
Literal: Bí ìkà-á bá ńrojọ́ if the-wicked-one states a-case, ìkà kọ́ ni yó da it-is not the-wicked-one who will decide-it.
Idiomatic: "If the wicked person states a case, it is not the wicked person who will judge it."
Meaning: Presenting a case is not deciding it, and the separation of the two roles is what protects the outcome.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The wicked will not prevail in the face of impartial judges"
Notes: Rojọ́ is to state or press a case and da is to decide it, and the proverb's entire force is in holding those two verbs apart. It is the most optimistic proverb in the file and entry 15 below is its exact contradiction, where the one who states and the one who decides turn out to be allies. The corpus prints both.
Literal: Bí ẹlẹ́rẹ̀kẹ́ régérégé when the-owner-of-smooth-cheeks bá ro ẹjọ́-ọ tirẹ̀ tán has finished stating his case, kó rántí pé let-him remember that ẹlẹ́rẹ̀kẹ́ mẹ́ the-owner-of-blemished-cheeks kí á rí rò also has something to state.
Idiomatic: "After the person with smooth cheeks has stated his or her case, he or she should remember that the person with blemished cheeks will have something to say."
Meaning: The impressive speaker finishing his account is not the end of the hearing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person who looks good owing to the efforts of his or her subordinates should remember that they also deserve some credit"
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss moves the proverb away from the courtroom toward credit for work, which is a real gap between his translation and his own reading: the Yorùbá is entirely about ro ẹjọ́, stating a case, and the smooth and blemished cheeks are the two litigants' standing. The physical contrast is the point, since appearance in Yorùbá thought is treated as evidence about a person throughout owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, and the proverb warns the court not to take it as evidence here. Confidence on the gloss: contested.
Literal: Ọ̀ràn kan one matter la fi ńṣòfin ọ̀kan is-what we use to-make-law for-another.
Idiomatic: "One problem serves as the basis for a law that will apply to another case."
Meaning: A settled case becomes the rule for the case that comes after it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Experience establishes a precedent for future occurrences"
Notes: Ṣòfin, to make law, is built from ṣe and òfin, and its presence here is direct evidence that Yorùbá judicial practice was understood by its own participants as generating binding rules rather than settling each quarrel afresh. This is the clearest statement of precedent in the corpus and it is worth the attention of anyone who has been told that customary adjudication was ad hoc.
Literal: Àbẹ̀tẹ́lẹ̀ the-thing-pressed-underneath ní ńfọ́jú onídàájọ́ is-what blinds the-judge.
Idiomatic: "It is bribery that blinds a judge."
Meaning: What defeats a judgement is not error but payment.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Bribery beclouds judgment"
Notes: Àbẹ̀tẹ́lẹ̀ is literally what is pressed down underneath, from bẹ̀ and ìtẹ̀lẹ̀, and it is the standard Yorùbá word for a bribe: the metaphor is of a thing slid under something else, out of sight. Fọ́jú is to blind, the same verb used of actual blindness in owe-eyes-seeing-blindness, and the proverb makes the judge's failure a failure of sight rather than of will, which is more forgiving to him than the facts warrant. This proverb also appears at entry 19 of owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity.
Literal: Akọ́kọ́ dájọ́ the-first to-judge lọ̀tá ẹlẹ́jọ́ is the-enemy of-the-litigant.
Idiomatic: "The first judge is the enemy of the litigant."
Meaning: Whoever rules on you first becomes the person you hold it against.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Few people take criticism kindly"
Notes: Akọ́kọ́, the first, implies a sequence of judges, which is evidence of a real appellate structure: a matter that was not accepted at the compound could go to the quarter chief and from there to the palace. The proverb's target is the losing litigant's resentment rather than the judge's conduct, and it is one of the few places where the corpus takes the judge's side.
Literal: Òkú ẹjọ́ a-dead case lọlọ́jà ńdá is-what the-market-owner decides.
Idiomatic: "It is a dead case that the ruler adjudicates."
Meaning: By the time a matter reaches the ruler the heat has already gone out of it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A matter that has come before a conciliatory body is no longer urgent"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote explains that ọlọ́jà means literally "owner of the market" and is a designation for the ruler of a community, because the market is usually outside his palace, and that in his role as ruler he adjudicates and resolves disputes among his subjects . That etymology places the court at the market and is the strongest single piece of evidence in the corpus for the physical siting of Yorùbá adjudication; see owe-market-as-place and owe-palace-shrine-grove. Òkú, corpse, applied to a case is a striking figure: the ruler receives it already dead.
Literal: Bí ẹjọ́ ò sunwọ̀n if a-case is-not good, ẹlẹ́jọ́ là ńfún dá it-is the-case-owner we give it to-judge.
Idiomatic: "If a case is hopeless, one asks the owner to judge it."
Meaning: When the guilt is plain, the guilty party is handed the verdict to pronounce on himself.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If guilt is obvious, the guilty should be made to declare it"
Notes: This is a real technique of Yorùbá arbitration rather than a metaphor, and it reverses entry 4 exactly: there the litigant may not confirm his own case, here he is made to condemn it. The difference is that entry 4 concerns evidence and this concerns a verdict already reached, where handing the man the sentence spares the arbitrator the enmity of entry 10.
Literal: Ọlọ́run ní ńṣèdájọ́ God is-who renders-judgement-on a-fehín-pínran he-who-uses-teeth-to-share-meat.
Idiomatic: "Only God can render justice to the person who uses his teeth to share out meat."
Meaning: Some cheating happens where no human court can see it, and the only remaining jurisdiction is God's.
Used when: Owomoyela: "God alone sees, and can reward, what people do in secret"
Notes: The image is precise and physical: a man distributing meat who bites pieces off as he shares leaves no evidence and no accuser, since the theft passes into him. Ṣèdájọ́, to do judgement, is the full noun form of dájọ́, and applying it to Ọlọ́run extends the court upward rather than replacing it, which is how the corpus generally handles divine justice. Compare owe-olodumare-supreme-being and entry 14.
Literal: Ta ni who is-it tàkúté Olúwa God's trap ò leè mú cannot catch?
Idiomatic: "Who is beyond being caught in God's trap?"
Meaning: No standing puts a person outside the reach of the final jurisdiction.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No one is beyond God's judgment"
Notes: Tàkúté is a snare of the sprung kind used by hunters, so the figure is of an ambush rather than a summons, and it makes God's justice a matter of a mechanism already set rather than a proceeding begun. Read against entry 23 below, where great criminals are never called to account, this is the corpus's answer to its own complaint, and it is an answer that concedes the human court has failed.
Literal: Èké ní ńrojọ́ the-devious-one is-who states-the-case; ìkà ní ńdá a the-wicked-one is-who decides it.
Idiomatic: "The person stating a case is devious; the person judging it is evil."
Meaning: Your opponent and your judge are the same kind of person and are working together.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's adversary and the person one looks to for justice are in league together"
Notes: This is the darkest proverb in the file and it is built as the exact mirror of entry 6, using the same two verbs, rojọ́ and dá, in the same order: there the separation of the roles saves the honest man, here it saves nobody because both offices are held by the same class of person. Èké and ìkà, the devious and the wicked, are the corpus's standing pair for bad character, discussed in owe-iwa-character. That the corpus supplies both 6 and 15 without reconciling them is the same double provision noted throughout owe-disputed-meanings.
Literal: Olè ké-kè-ké small-small thieves ni wọ́n ńpè kúnlẹ̀ are-whom they call to-kneel; ta ní jẹ́ wí pé who dares say that kí ọmọ Aríọrí ó wá sí gba-n-gba the-child-of-Aríọrí should come into the-open kó wá wí tirẹ̀ to state his own?
Idiomatic: "Only small-time thieves are called to account on their knees; who dares summon the son of Aríọrí to come out in the open and render an account?"
Meaning: The court reaches downward only.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Small-time criminals alone are brought to book; the really big criminals go scot-free"
Notes: Kúnlẹ̀, to kneel, is not decoration: Owomoyela's footnote at entry 690 records that it is customary for litigants in Yorùbá courts to state their cases on their knees , which makes the posture the physical mark of being subject to the court at all, and this proverb's whole complaint is that the powerful never assume it. Gba-n-gba, the open, is the corpus's word for the public arena where matters are properly settled, used the same way throughout owe-secrets-gossip-rumour. Aríọrí is a name standing for a person of consequence.
Literal: Adìẹ ò lórúnkún ẹjọ́ a-chicken has-no knee for cases.
Idiomatic: "A chicken has no knees for cases."
Meaning: Something without the equipment to be tried should stay out of what would put it on trial.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should steer clear of actionable behavior"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote is what makes this proverb legible: litigants in Yorùbá courts state their cases on their knees, and the proverb builds on the fact that chickens have no knees and therefore cannot kneel to state cases . Without that note the English is opaque, which is a good illustration of how much of the corpus depends on a physical courtroom practice a modern reader no longer shares. Entries 16, 18 and 19 all rest on the same posture.
Literal: Bí ẹlẹ́jọ́ bá mọ ẹjọ́-ọ rẹ̀ lẹ́bi if the-case-owner knows his case to-be-at-fault, kì í pẹ́ ní kùnúnlẹ̀ he-does-not stay-long in kneeling.
Idiomatic: "The person involved in a case who acknowledges guilt does not last long on his or her knees."
Meaning: Admitting fault shortens the proceeding.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Penitence invites leniency"
Notes: The kneeling is again literal and here it is being measured in time, so the proverb states an actual sentencing practice: the man who concedes is let up. Ẹ̀bi is guilt or fault, the standing opposite of àre, acquittal, and the pair runs through this file the way òtítọ́ and irọ́ run through owe-truth-in-dispute-and-oath.
Literal: Ẹni tí ó lè jà the-person who can fight ni yóò kúnlẹ̀ kalẹ́ is-who will kneel until-evening.
Idiomatic: "It is the incorrigible fighter who has to remain on his or her knees until nightfall."
Meaning: A taste for quarrelling converts directly into time spent kneeling in front of an arbitrator.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person who cannot stay out of a fight will spend his or her time incessantly stating cases"
Notes: Kalẹ́, until evening, is the marker that makes the sentence a punishment rather than a hearing: the day is consumed. Read with entry 18, the corpus is describing a graded posture where the length of the kneeling is the outcome, and this is the closest the proverb record comes to describing Yorùbá sentencing. Compare owe-enmity-quarrel-reconciliation, where the fighter's real cost is measured in relationships rather than in hours.
Literal: Ajẹ̀bi má gbà he-who-is-guilty-and-does-not-accept-it ní ńkógun wọ̀lú is-who brings war into-town.
Idiomatic: "It is he-who-is-guilty-but-refuses-to-accept-the-guilt that brings warfare into a town."
Meaning: The refusal to concede a finished case is what turns a dispute into a war.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Refusal to accept one's guilt ruins communal harmony"
Notes: Kógun wọ̀lú, to gather war and bring it into town, is the phrase used of the internal quarrels that actually destroyed Yorùbá towns in the nineteenth century, and its use here places the failure of adjudication at the root of civil war rather than treating that as a separate subject. This is the sharpest political proverb in the file and it belongs beside owe-war-warrior-battlefield and owe-town-city-village.
Literal: Ta ló dè ọ́ who tied you tí ò ńkakọ that you are-crowing?
Idiomatic: "Who has tied you down and thus forced you to confess your guilt?"
Meaning: Nobody made you say it, so the confession is coming from inside.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said to stop the mouths of people who protest too much as a result of a guilty conscience"
Notes: Kàkọ is the verb for a cock's crowing, so Owomoyela's "confess" is a reading of a word that literally means to make a loud unbidden noise, and the proverb's figure is of a man who cannot stop announcing himself. The gap between the Yorùbá and the gloss is worth keeping visible: the Yorùbá says only that the man is crowing untied, and the confession is inferred.
Literal: Aṣọ̀ràn the-doer-of-the-offence ní ńṣe aájò is-who does the-solicitude.
Idiomatic: "The guilty person is the one who commiserates."
Meaning: Conspicuous sympathy is where guilt goes to hide.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The guilty person often tries to conceal his or her culpability by being the most solicitous"
Notes: Aájò is attentive care, the fussing done around a bereaved or injured person, and the proverb identifies it as evidence rather than kindness, which makes it a piece of practical detection rather than a moral observation. It belongs with entry 24 and with owe-friendship-trust-betrayal.
Literal: Àṣá gbé mi ládìẹ the-kite carried-off my chicken kò dúró it did-not tarry, nítorí ó mọ ohun tó ṣe because it knows what it did.
Idiomatic: "The kite snatched my chicken and did not tarry, because it knew what it had done."
Meaning: The speed of the departure is itself the admission.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The guilty person has his or her conscience to contend with"
Notes: The kite is the corpus's standard raptor of opportunistic theft, and the observation is ornithologically accurate, which is why the proverb works as evidence rather than as allegory. Set beside entry 24, the two proverbs give the corpus's rule of inference: flight and excessive concern both point the same way.
Literal: Ẹni tí ó sá the-person who ran là ńlé is-whom we chase.
Idiomatic: "People chase only those who flee."
Meaning: Running is what makes you the suspect, whatever you did.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Those who act as though they are guilty are presumed to be guilty"
Notes: The proverb states a presumption rather than a fact, and it is worded to be usable both as advice to the innocent and as an account of how a crowd behaves. The corpus is unusually clear-eyed here: it does not say the runner is guilty, only that he will be treated as guilty, which is a different and more useful claim.
Literal: Ilé-ni-mo-wà I-was-at-home kì í jẹ̀bi ẹjọ́ is-never found-guilty in a-case.
Idiomatic: "'I-was-in-my-home' is never the guilty party in a dispute."
Meaning: Presence is what makes a person liable, so staying out of the matter keeps you out of the finding.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One does not get into trouble by minding one's own business"
Notes: The Yorùbá turns the alibi itself into a person by using it as a compound name, Ilé-ni-mo-wà, which is the same naming device as entry 1 and is one of the corpus's most characteristic moves. That an alibi of location was a recognised and reliable defence tells us something concrete about what Yorùbá courts treated as exculpatory. Compare owe-home-compound-returning.
Literal: A-sọ-aré-dìjà he-who-turns-play-into-a-fight ní ńjẹ̀bi ẹjọ́ is-who is-found-guilty in a-case.
Idiomatic: "One-who-turns-play-into-a-fight is always guilty."
Meaning: Where a game becomes a quarrel, fault lies with whoever changed its nature.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should take a jest in the spirit of jest"
Notes: This is a rule of attribution with a definite legal shape: the court does not weigh the injury but identifies the person who changed the register. Aré is play or sport, and the corpus uses the play-to-injury transition repeatedly, most sharply at entry 30 of owe-weapons-defence-vulnerability where a knife does damage under cover of play.
Literal: Èkúté ilé the-house-mouse ò lẹ́nu has-no mouth bá alákàá wíjọ́ to-dispute-a-case with the-granary-owner.
Idiomatic: "The house mouse has no mouth to dispute a case with the owner of the granary."
Meaning: Where what you are is the offence, there is nothing to argue.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A known culprit cannot successfully plead innocence"
Notes: Wíjọ́, to speak a case, is the mouse's missing capacity, and the pun is that a mouse has a mouth for one purpose only, which is precisely what convicts it. The proverb is used against a person whose known habits make the specific accusation unnecessary.
Literal: "Méè-wáyé-ẹjọ́" I-did-not-come-into-the-world-for-litigation fọmọ ẹ̀ fọ́ kọ mẹ́fà gave his daughter to six suitors.
Idiomatic: "Méèwáyéẹjọ́ ['I did not come to live a life of litigation'] gave his daughter to six suitors all at once."
Meaning: Announcing that you want no disputes does not help if you then arrange one.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one wishes to avoid trouble, one should avoid actions certain to result in trouble"
Notes: The joke is in the name: Méè-wáyé-ẹjọ́ is a real Yorùbá name-form, a sentence-name declaring the bearer's disposition, and the proverb sets it against the bearer's conduct. Six competing suitors for one daughter is a guaranteed ẹjọ́ about bridewealth, which is a specific and litigable matter treated in owe-marriage-husbands-wives.
Literal: Eégún dẹ́bi the-masquerader finds-one-guilty, kò ṣéé gbá lójú he-is-not slappable in-the-face.
Idiomatic: "The masquerader judges one guilty, and yet one dares not slap him."
Meaning: A verdict from an untouchable source cannot be answered even when it is wrong.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Against some people one has no recourse"
Notes: The eégún is the masked ancestral presence, and to strike one is a grave offence, so the proverb selects the exact case where the accused's rage has nowhere to go. That the masquerade could deliver a finding of guilt is a real fact about Yorùbá dispute settlement, where masked authority operated alongside the chiefly court; see owe-orisa-tradition-speech and owe-taboo-pollution-forbidden. The proverb is used of any judge who cannot be appealed against.
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: Without local people to speak for you, the process gives you nothing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A stranger cannot hope for vindication against an indigene"
Notes: The proverb identifies the structural weakness of a court that runs on the testimony of neighbours: the àjòjì has no neighbours. Owomoyela's gloss goes further than the text, since the Yorùbá says only that the stranger finds no witness while the gloss says he cannot hope to be vindicated, and the added step is his. It sits beside entry 31 and belongs with owe-stranger-guest-hospitality.
Literal: Ajá tó lẹ́ni lẹ́hìn a-dog that has-people behind-it á pọ̀bọ will kill-a-monkey; èèyàn tó lẹ́ni lẹ́hìn a-person who has-people behind-him á jàre ẹjọ́ will win a-case.
Idiomatic: "A dog that has people behind it will kill a monkey; a person with people behind him will win lawsuits."
Meaning: Backing decides cases.
Used when: Owomoyela: "With people behind one, one can accomplish the impossible"
Notes: Jàre, to be in the right, is here made a function of support rather than of fact, and the parallel with the dog makes the mechanism physical: the animal fights above its weight because of who is behind it. Read with entry 30, the corpus's account of what actually determines an outcome is people, and this is the same ẹni lẹ́hìn that owe-community-cooperation-obligation treats as the central good.
Literal: Ọmọ tí ò níbaba a-child who has-no father kì í jìjà ẹ̀bi does-not fight a-guilty fight.
Idiomatic: "A fatherless child should not engage in an unjust fight."
Meaning: Being in the wrong is a luxury that requires someone to answer for you.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never provoke trouble unless you have strong backers" Owomoyela cross-references 3136 .
Notes: Ìjà ẹ̀bi, a guilty fight, is a quarrel in which you are the offender, and the proverb says plainly that the fatherless may only be in the right. The advice is not moral but structural, and it is the same claim as entry 31 from the losing side. This proverb also appears at entry 39 of owe-patience-restraint-temper in a longer form paired with a door and its knocker.
Literal: Agbèfọ́ba the-king's-speech-bearer kì í jẹ̀bi fún un does-not bear-guilt for him.
Idiomatic: "The king's spokesman does not bear the king's guilt."
Meaning: Liability stops with the person who decided, not with the person who spoke.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The servant is not liable for the master's misdeeds"
Notes: The office is real: the ọba does not address the public directly, and a designated speaker carries his words, which is the institutional fact the proverb protects. The rule is a genuine principle of Yorùbá liability, and it deserves noting against the assumption that customary law lacked doctrines of agency. Compare owe-chiefs-kings-authority.
Literal: Gàḿbàrí pa Fúlàní a-Hausa-person killed a-Fulani-person, kò lẹ́jọ́ ńnú there-is-no case in-it.
Idiomatic: "A Hausa person has killed a Fulani person; there is no case to answer."
Meaning: Where the two parties are effectively one people, the matter is internal and generates no case.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If the offender and the offended are so close as to be virtual twins, it is as though there has been no offense" Owomoyela cross-references 4970 .
Notes: The proverb is jurisdictional rather than ethnographic: it says that a Yorùbá court took no cognisance of a killing between two northerners, which is a statement about the limits of the court's writ. Owomoyela's cross-reference at 4970 gives the domestic version, the king's goat eating the king's yams . Gàḿbàrí is the Yorùbá term for Hausa people, and the proverb's flattening of Hausa and Fulani into one category is the view from Yorùbá country rather than a claim about those peoples.
Literal: Kòkòrò tó jẹ̀fọ́ the-insect that ate the-vegetable jàre ẹ̀fọ́ is-in-the-right against the-vegetable; ìwọ̀n lewéko ńdára mọ it-is in-measure that leaves should-be-attractive.
Idiomatic: "The insect that eats the vegetable wins the case against the vegetable; leaves should observe moderation in their attractiveness."
Meaning: The tempter carries more of the fault than the person who succumbed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person enticed to a crime is not as guilty as the person who did the enticing"
Notes: Jàre, to win the case, is used here of an insect against a plant, which is the corpus's habitual way of stating a legal principle in the natural world so that it cannot be argued with. The doctrine is a real one about inducement, and it sits oddly beside entry 26, where the person who changes the situation is the guilty one: here it is the attractive party rather than the acting party who is blamed. Compare owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance.
Literal: Iyán dí kókó pounded-yam becomes lumpy, kì í ṣẹjọ́ oníṣu it-is-not the-case-of the-yam-seller; ọkà á mẹrẹ the-yam-flour-meal is-badly-made, kì í ṣẹjọ́ elélùbọ́ it-is-not the-case-of the-flour-seller.
Idiomatic: "If the pounded yam is lumpy, the fault does not belong to the seller of the yams; if the yam-flour meal is ill cooked, the fault does not belong to the seller of the yam flour."
Meaning: Whoever supplied the material is not answerable for what you did with it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not blame those from whom one obtained materials if in the end one botched their use"
Notes: Ẹjọ́ here means the case in the sense of the charge that would be brought, and the double structure with two commodities is the corpus's way of establishing that the rule is general rather than about yams. This is a commercial liability rule, and its market setting makes it evidence about Yorùbá trade practice; see owe-market-as-place. Entry 37 is the same rule with corn.
Literal: Bí ẹkọ́ bá níkókó if the-corn-meal has lumps, kì í ṣẹjọ́ alágbàdo it-is-not the-case-of the-corn-seller.
Idiomatic: "If the corn meal is lumpy, the fault does not lie with the corn seller."
Meaning: The supplier's liability ends where the preparation begins.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person who furnished the raw material is not responsible for the flaws of the finished product"
Notes: Owomoyela prints this and entry 36 separately without linking them, though they state one rule with different commodities, which is a good instance of how his thematic arrangement can split a family of variants. Ẹkọ is the maize preparation eaten across Yorùbá country, and the pairing with èlùbọ́ at entry 36 covers both staple starches.
Literal: Kì í ṣe ẹjọ́ eléhíngan-gan-ran it-is-not the-case-of the-one-with-protruding-teeth; òrìṣà ló dá a it-is the-god who made him tí kò fi awọ bò ó who did-not cover them with skin.
Idiomatic: "The blame does not belong to the person with protruding teeth; it was the god who created him or her that failed to cover them with enough skin."
Meaning: No case lies against a person for a condition he did not choose.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not be faulted for things over which one has no control"
Notes: The òrìṣà named by implication is Ọbàtálá, fashioner of human bodies, whom Owomoyela identifies in this role in his note at entry 4961 . The proverb defends the person by relocating the complaint to the creator, which is bold and characteristic: the corpus is willing to name the god as the responsible party rather than leave the mocked person defenceless. Compare owe-fate-gods-responsibility and entry 33 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance.
Literal: Àkùkọ gàgàrà the-tall mature rooster ní ńdájọ́ fún ni is-who delivers-judgement for-one láàrin ọ̀gànjọ́ in-the-middle of-deep-night.
Idiomatic: "It is a mature rooster that settles disputes for people in the dead of night."
Meaning: Some questions are settled by a fact that arrives on its own, with no advocate.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Incontrovertible evidence settles all disagreement"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote explains that the crowing rooster marks the hours for people, thus settling disputes as to what time of night it is . So the proverb is literal before it is figurative: the disputed matter is the hour, and the cock is a witness whose testimony nobody argues with. Dájọ́ is used of a bird here, which is the file's only instance of the judging verb outside human hands apart from God at entry 13.
Literal: Orí pọ̀ ní Mògún heads are-many at Mògún; ìpín àìṣẹ̀ ló pọ̀ níbẹ̀ it-is the-portion of-the-not-offending that is-plentiful there.
Idiomatic: "There are heads aplenty in the grove where Ògún receives sacrifice; most numerous are those of innocent people."
Meaning: Most of those who died for an offence had not committed one.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Even innocence does not always guarantee safety or justice"
Notes: Mògún is the grove where Ògún receives sacrifice, and the heads are the visible remains of executions and offerings, so the proverb is a count taken at the place where the system's output accumulates. Ìpín àìṣẹ̀, the portion of the one who did not offend, is the same phrase used at entries 4546 and 5079 for the protective force belonging to an innocent person , and its use here is bitter: their portion is a place in the pile. This is the strongest indictment of Yorùbá judicial killing in the collection and it comes from inside the tradition. Compare owe-sacrifice-offering-exchange.
Three observations across these forty proverbs.
The corpus states a procedural standard and then documents its own failure to meet it, without softening either. Entries 1 through 8 are as clear a statement of natural justice as any tradition produces: hear both sides, keep the witness impartial, disqualify the injured arbitrator, refuse the bribe, treat the settled case as precedent. Entries 15, 16, 23 and 40 then say that the judge is in league with your adversary, that only small thieves are made to kneel, that the fleeing man is convicted by his flight, and that the sacred grove is full of innocent heads. Neither set cancels the other, and a speaker reaches for whichever the occasion requires. This double provision is not confusion but the ordinary working of a proverb corpus, and it is the same pattern noted at entries 1 and 9 of owe-weapons-defence-vulnerability.
The physical courtroom is recoverable from these texts and it is a specific place. Litigants state their cases on their knees, which is why a chicken cannot bring one at entry 17, why the penitent is let up early at entry 18, why the quarrelsome man kneels until nightfall at entry 19, and why the powerful never kneel at all at entry 16. The judge is the ọlọ́jà, owner of the market, and Owomoyela's note explains that the title attaches to the ruler because the market sits outside his palace . Cases proceed in gba-n-gba, the open. There is an order of appeal implied by akọ́kọ́ dájọ́, the first judge, at entry 10. None of this is stated anywhere as a description; all of it has to be read off the proverbs, and that is a good demonstration of the corpus's value as historical evidence about institutions nobody wrote down.
Fault in these proverbs is located by inference from behaviour, not by proof of the act. Entry 22 reads guilt off excessive sympathy, entry 23 off the speed of departure, entry 24 off flight, entry 21 off unprompted protest, entry 27 off the offender's known nature. Against this, entries 35 through 38 are all rules that shift fault away from the obvious party: to the tempter, to the cook rather than the supplier, to the god rather than the man. Taken together the corpus is describing a court that reasons about character and circumstance rather than about evidence of the deed, which fits an institution where the arbitrator already knows all the parties. Whether that reasoning is a strength or the reason entry 40 is true is a question the corpus poses and does not answer.
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.
Thirty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the ear as the organ of instruction and intelligence, deafness as a figure for obstinacy, and the mouth as the organ that eats, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
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.