Oríkì Orílẹ̀: Ọ̀yọ́, Ẹ̀gbá, Ìjẹ̀bú and Ọ̀fà
Lineage and town-of-origin oríkì for four major Yoruba groups, including two variant texts for Ọ̀fà shown side by side rather than merged.
intermediatemedium·
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Lineage and town-of-origin oríkì for four major Yoruba groups, including two variant texts for Ọ̀fà shown side by side rather than merged.
towns-oriki-orile in 12-towns sets out what oríkì orílẹ̀ is and does at the conceptual level, and already presents one Ẹ̀gbá text. This file adds the fuller lineage material this section's harvested research surfaced for Ọ̀yọ́, Ẹ̀gbá, Ìjẹ̀bú and Ọ̀fà, including a second, longer Ẹ̀gbá text and, for Ọ̀fà, two independently sourced texts that overlap in content but were not merged, following this corpus's rule to show conflicting or variant sources side by side rather than silently choosing between them.
Ọ̀yọ́ nilé babaà mi. Àparò mélòó péré N ńbẹ ní Ọ̀yọ́ awa? Àparò mẹ́ta péré N ńbẹ ní Ọ̀yọ́ awa. Ọ̀kan ńṣe ká bà, ká bà, Ọ̀kan ńṣe ká fò, ká fò, Ọ̀kan ńṣe ká fò pin ká relé Alé-Òyun.
Presented with partial tone marking, as printed in the source .
Oyo is the home of my father. How many bushfowl are there in our Oyo? There are only three bushfowl in our Oyo. One said, "Let's sit, let's sit," one said, "Let's fly, let's fly," one said, "Let's whirr off and go to the home of Ale-Oyun."
Translated by Karin Barber, from I Could Speak Until Tomorrow, and re-examined in her later essay in The Yoruba Artist: New Theoretical Perspectives on African Arts .
What it says. A miniature fable of three birds facing the same situation and choosing three different responses, sit, fly, or leave entirely, told as a personal narrative ("I cleared a small farm") that continues past the excerpt above into an account of hardship on the land at Alé-Òyun.
Significance. Oríkì orílẹ̀ is usually described, as towns-oriki-orile sets out, as a set of markers by which a place is recognisable rather than a chronicle; this text is unusual in the harvested material for its sustained narrative shape, a fable-like structure rather than the accretive epithet-list form oriki-poetics-and-untranslatability documents as typical. It shows that the classification "orílẹ̀" describes subject matter, not a single fixed formal shape.
Performed. During traditional life transitions, marriages, especially the bride's lament and departure songs, funerals, civic celebrations, and lineage gatherings .
towns-oriki-orile already presents one circulating Ẹ̀gbá text (Ẹ̀gbá ọmọ Lisabi / Ọmọ olóòfin ṣà bí ewé / Ọmọ ajíbógun Olúmọ), sourced to an unattributed popular rendering, and notes explicitly that the middle line's reading is tonally unstable between two possible senses. This harvest's research turned up a longer, differently sourced text opening with the same genealogical claim but developing it further.
Ẹ̀gbá 'mọ Lísàbí Agbòǹgbò àkàlà. Ọmọ erin j'ogún ọlá. Ọmọ ṣí 'lẹ̀kùn pa 'lẹ̀kùn dé. Aridi ògo lójú Ogun. Baba t'ẹ̀yin ni wọ́n ròyìn ogun bààrà f'ágbe. Ẹ̀gbá, ọmọ adúró gbẹrú, má dúró gbẹ̀kọ. Ẹrú ní nsini, ẹ̀kọ kìí sìn 'yàn.
Egba, children of Lisabi Agbongbo-Akala, offspring of the elephant that inherits dignity and honour, descendants of those who open and shut the gateway. Those whose valor shines bright on the warfront; your ancestors were the brave ones to whom the spread of war was reported even to the farmer.
Translated by Waidi Adebayo .
What it says. Beyond the founder Lísàbí, this text adds a military-alertness claim, war news reaching even the farmer, and a proverb-like couplet about the difference between a slave, who serves, and cornmeal (ẹ̀kọ), which does not, whose full sense is not recoverable from the excerpt as harvested.
Significance. Read beside towns-oriki-orile's shorter text, this confirms that Ẹ̀gbá oríkì orílẹ̀ circulates in more than one length and version, consistent with the general finding, stated in that file and in oriki-poetics-and-untranslatability, that oríkì has no single fixed text, only performances and their transcriptions. Both texts open on Lísàbí, the historic Ẹ̀gbá leader; this corpus does not attempt to reconcile the two into one canonical version.
Performed. During the annual Lísàbí Festival, royal investitures, chieftaincy coronations, and lineage gatherings .
Notes. The source is a personal blog (Waidi Adebayo, 2023) rather than a peer-reviewed publication, though the translator is named, which is more than towns-oriki-orile's Ẹ̀gbá source can claim. Confidence on the translation is medium.
Oni mi je nubu omo Oluweri Omo Ajebu josa de Igbo – bini. Omo Asale-gege booni noobinren. A-b'aya-kunle-tititi.
Presented without tone marks, as printed in the source . The transcription is also visibly irregular in the harvested text (spacing and word-division vary from standard orthography); it is reproduced as printed rather than silently regularised.
Rovers of the deep sea, offspring of Oluweri. Rovers of deep waters as far as Igbobini. Whose forebear indulged concubines as if not married. Whereas his home is full of women.
Translated by Ayinde Abimbola .
What it says. The lineage is defined first by its relationship to water, roving the seas as far as Igbobini, a claim consistent with Ìjẹ̀bú's documented historical position as a coastal and lagoon-trading Yoruba subgroup, and second by a candid, unflattering domestic claim about a forebear's infidelity despite an already large household of wives.
Significance. This text is a documented instance of the point yoruba-oriki makes explicitly: oríkì is a genre of accurate naming rather than uncritical flattery, and can contain frank material a lineage might not choose to advertise if given the option. The infidelity line is not softened or omitted in the source.
Performed. During traditional festivals including Agemo and Ọjúde Ọba, Ọ̀sùgbó society gatherings, civic and royal ceremonies, marriages and family life-cycle events .
Notes. The source (a Scribd-hosted document, "Oríkì as Source of Yoruba History") is not a peer-reviewed publication, though it names a translator; the corrupted transcription noted above should be read as a caution about the reliability of the Yoruba text's exact wording, not as a caution about the substance of the claims it makes.
oriki-history-and-genealogy in this section already presents and analyses one Ọ̀fà text, sourced to Karin Barber, focused on the founding fight and the "cut it fairly, divide it fairly" ethic. The harvested research also turned up a second, longer text from a different source pairing, Babalola and Olafimihan, which overlaps in content, the same founder, the same fight, the same fair-division proverb, but continues considerably further. Both are given here rather than merged.
Already fully presented in oriki-history-and-genealogy; summarised here for comparison. Opens: Ìjàkàdí l' ooro t'Offa... ("Wrestling is the tradition of Offa..."), naming Olalomi and the founding fight, closing on the fair-division proverb. Translated by Karin Barber .
Ìyẹ̀rú-Ọ̀kín, Ọmọ Ọlọ́fà Mọ̀jọ̀, Ọmọ Ọláalọ́mí, Ọmọ ab'iṣu jorúkọ, Ìjàkádì l'òrò t'Ọ̀fà, Ìjà kan ìjà kan tí wọ́n ń jà l'Ọ́fà l'ọ́jọ́sí, Ọláalọ́mí ojú ta l'ó ṣe? Ó ṣ'ojú ebè lálá, Ó sì ṣ'ojú poro nínú oko, Ìbá ṣ'ojú olóko, ìbá là wọ́n. Ọmọ lááre, ọmọ búure, Ìkan ò gbọdọ̀ ju 'kan,
Iyeru of the Peacock, offspring of Olofa Mojo, child of Olalomi, descendant of the one whose harvest of sweet potatoes bears renown. Wrestling is the custom and sport of Offa. A historic contest that was fought in Offa of old, Olalomi, before whom did it occur? It occurred before [the account continues past the excerpt harvested].
Rendered in academic corpora on Ọ̀fà panegyric, without an individually named living translator; the source attributes the text jointly to Adeboye Babalola's Àwọn Oríkì Orílẹ̀ Mẹ́tàdínlọ́gbọ̀n (2000) and to James Bukoye Olafimihan's Ìwé Ìtàn Ọ̀fà .
What the two texts share and where they differ. Both name Olalomi and the founding fight at Ọ̀fà; both carry the fair-division ethic as a closing or near-closing proverb. Text two adds a named ancestor, Ọlọ́fà Mọ̀jọ̀, an agricultural epithet about renowned sweet potatoes, and a specific if elliptical detail about where the fight occurred, "before the yam-mound," that text one does not include at all.
Significance. This is the clearest documented case in this section of two published sources treating the same lineage's founding oríkì at different lengths, consistent with oriki-poetics-and-untranslatability's account of accretive structure: text two is not a corrected or superior version of text one, it is a longer performance or a different performer's selection from the same underlying stock of epithets about the same founder.
Performed. Royal installations, palace rituals, naming ceremonies, wedding celebrations, burial rites of lineage members, and the annual wrestling-associated Ọ̀fà festival .
Notes. Confidence on text two's translation is medium: the translator is not an individually named scholar but a compiled academic rendering, and the harvested excerpt cuts off mid-sentence at "before the yam-mound," which is reproduced as harvested rather than completed.
oriki-history-and-genealogy in this section.The praise poetry that attaches a person to a place of origin, why Yoruba people carry a town identity they may never have lived in, and how that identity crossed the Atlantic.
Bolanle Awe's case for oríkì as historical evidence, worked through two towns' founding oríkì, with a plain statement of what a historian can and cannot recover from the form.
Royal and lineage oríkì for four eastern and central Yoruba kingdoms, including a rare text naming a specific carver rather than only royalty or warriors.
Three lineage oríkì from Karin Barber's Okuku fieldwork, plus the Olúfọ́n dynasty and the Ìkòyí warrior lineage whose praise obliges the chanter to include its own dishonour.
The complete classification of oríkì by subject, orílẹ̀ through eranko, with a worked text for each kind and the boundary cases that show the categories are not airtight.
The Owu lineage's cloth and temperament oríkì, two conflicting versions of the Iresa lineage text, and a plain account of the lineage material this corpus found and could not verify.