Ìjàpá and the Princess Who Would Not Speak
A tortoise tale in which Ìjàpá wins half a palace by provoking a mute king's daughter into speech through a false accusation of theft, recorded by Ellis in 1894.
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A tortoise tale in which Ìjàpá wins half a palace by provoking a mute king's daughter into speech through a false accusation of theft, recorded by Ellis in 1894.
The Yorùbá wey dem quote, the proverbs, oríkì, ẹsẹ Ifá, word list headwords, Odù names and citations dey exactly as the corpus record dem, for every language.
Dis na tori about Ìjàpá tortoise and Bola, one king pikin wey no fit or wey refuse to talk. Ìjàpá bet di king say im fit make am talk, and im do am wen im drop one bottle of honey for where di girl go see am, con accuse am say she tief am. Di vexation say dem frame am for wetin she no do na wetin make am open mouth talk. A. B. Ellis record am for English for 1894 , and di pesin wey compile dis work no know any Yorùbá text of am.
Di style of di genre, di Ààlọ́ o / Ààlọ̀ opening and how dem divide àlọ́ into riddles and tori, dey set out for yoruba-alo. Di pipo wey tell Ellis di tori use different opening, wey dem discuss for alo-ijapa-singing-drum, and dis tori begin with "My alo is something about a certain king" .
One king get daughter wey no dey talk. Di girl name na Bola. Di king try everything wey im fit do make im daughter talk, and none of dem work, so im stop to keep am for town con send am go village.
Con reach time, Ìjàpá, "wey get thousand wayo tricks," come meet di king ask am: wetin you go give me if I make your pikin talk? I go divide my house into two, di king talk, and I go give you one half.
Ìjàpá go buy one bottle of honey, carry am go di bush where di girl dey stay, drop am for ground, con hide imsef.
Di girl come, see di bottle of honey, con stretch hand reach am.
Ìjàpá come out from where im hide, come reach her back, give am one slap, con shout: Ole! So na you steal my honey chop.
Me? di young girl talk. Na me steal your honey chop? Me?
Con reach, Ìjàpá tie am with rope con begin sing.
Dem no put di Yorùbá. Ellis print di song for English, and na only di refrain word for Yorùbá im keep .
Idiomatic English Translator: A. B. Ellis
Bola steal honey chop; Kayin, Kayin. Bola na wayo cheat; Kayin, Kayin. Bola na ole wey no get shame; Kayin, Kayin.
And wen Ìjàpá sing dis one, di girl sing back:
Inside bush of elephant I go with elephant; Kayin, Kayin. Inside bush of buffalo I go with buffalo; Kayin, Kayin. And Tortoise come accuse me say I steal honey chop; Kayin, Kayin.
Di refrain na di only Yorùbá wey remain for dis text, and e dey do sometin wey di English lines no fit show. Ellis explanation make kayin look like praise word, and e dey at di end of every line of accusation and con dey at di end of every line of denial. Dem dey use praise word end false accusation and con use am end di denial, wey near di call-and-response structure of oríkì pass anything wey dey English song, and di two singers dey use di same refrain, so di chorus no take side. If di audience dey join for di Kayin, Kayin, as di àlọ́ àpagbè style wey dem describe for yoruba-alo show, dat mean say di audience dey sing di same word for di two people for di quarrel. Ellis explanation na wetin dem present here as im own; di pesin wey compile dis work never check am against any Yorùbá dictionary of dat period, and di tone marks wey for settle di reading no dey for im text.
Ìjàpá lead di young girl go back to town. Im dey sing im song and she dey answer with her own, and na so dem take reach front of di king, wey shout with surprise say: my daughter, wey pesin never hear make she talk, dey talk today.
Di king divide im palace into two con give one half to Ìjàpá.
Ellis end di tori with im own style: "Na so Tortoise dey succeed for everything" .
Di way e work na say injustice na wetin force di talk out, no be say kindness beg am come out. Di king "try everything wey im fit do" but e fail. Wetin di king no fit do with all di resources wey im get as papa, Ìjàpá do am by making silence cost pass to talk: to accuse pesin of tif for public with slap force di girl to choose between her silence and her good name. She choose her good name.
Di way she take answer make sense to look well, because no be ordinary denial. She answer with where she don go, inside bush of elephant and bush of buffalo, wey be claim about her own level and mind against accusation about honey. Na so dem dey argue Yorùbá dispute, no be like English way: she no say "I no do am," she count who she be, and dat counting na di answer to di accusation. Di corpus treat di logic wey dey under am for owe-shame-reputation-being-seen.
Ellis closing line, "na so Tortoise dey succeed for everything," na moral lesson wey flat well well for tori where di trickster method na to scare and spoil di name of young woman wey no do anything. Make you notice wetin di tori no do: e no judge am at all, and im still keep di half-palace. Dis na one of di tori wey show di point wey dem argue for yoruba-alo and wey clear for di proverb record for owe-tortoise-ijapa-trickster, say Ìjàpá no be moral hero and di whole cycle no be system where everybody must get wetin dem deserve. Sometimes di wayo trick just dey work.
Another way dey to understand am, and e good to state am as analysis instead of fact. Di tori, in fact, na like cure: papa love and whole kingdom property no fit reach di girl, but shock do am. Whether Yorùbá storytellers understand di tori as story about treatment wey bring cure or strictly as tori about how Ìjàpá take collect im pay, di record wey dem check here no talk am, and Ellis no report wetin im tellers think about am.
Dis tori dey for di list of modern retelling site yorubatales.com as "The Princess Who Could Not Speak" . Dat site dey publish bibliography for di whole website instead of attribution per tori, so pesin no fit trace im version go meet collector, informant or performance, and dem no quote any text from am here. Dem record say e dey only to show evidence say di tori still dey circulate.
Dis compiler no find any Yorùbá-language version, and no second version dey wey dem collect to take compare. Di record wey dem consult no talk anything about regional variation.
Na for evening dem dey tell di story, wey dem treat for yoruba-alo. Song dey drive dis story pass normal: two full stanzas wey dem sing dey answer each other, wey carry reach di whole distance from bush go di palace. For performance, di waka go town na di section wey dem dey sing, and di person wey dey tell di story go dey switch between two voices while di audience dey hold di refrain.
The evening storytelling tradition, the call-and-response frame that opens it, riddles as a separate discipline, and the Ìjàpá cycle read as a body of ethical and comic literature.
Twenty-nine Yorùbá proverbs built around Àjàpá the tortoise, the tradition's central trickster animal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
A tortoise tale in which Ìjàpá rescues a drowning hunter's son on condition of enslaving him, hides him inside a drum that appears to sing by itself, and loses him when he drinks himself unconscious at a dance.
An aetiological tale of the buje dye-shrub, in which a woman who refused every suitor is assaulted by the tortoise and flees into the bush, and which Ellis used to adjudicate a competing published version.
What A. B. Ellis's 1894 collection contains, why its tale texts are usable, and exactly where its colonial framing has to be refused.
A tortoise tale in which Ìjàpá wins a wager by goading Erin the elephant into carrying him into town, then escapes execution by persuading the elephant that mud is more lethal than stone.