A tale in which Ajá the dog plants the leaves Ìjàpá threw in his face, grows a tree that bears agidi, and repays the insult exactly, with the tortoise killed by a falling stone when he tries the same song.
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 story about Ìjàpá di tortoise and Ajá di dog, two farmers wey de farm side by side. Ìjàpá chop im food for di front of di dog wey dey hungry, con throw di leaf wey dem use wrap am for im face. Di dog plant di leaves, dem grow become tree wey bear dat same food, and wen tortoise come later dey hungry, di dog chop for im front con explain why. Ìjàpá go back alone make e sing make di fruit drop, but na stone fall kill am instead. John Parkinson collect am from Ọ̀yọ́ informants and publish am for 1909 .
Na di third out of three stories about how tortoise shell take start for inside Parkinson own arrangement, wey dem treat togeda for alo-why-the-tortoise-shell-is-marked .
Parkinson explain Agidi as "corn wey dem grind, sieve and boil, con wrap am inside leaves" . Di leaf wey dem use wrap am dey important for di story: dem carry and chop di food inside leaf parcel, and na di wrap wey dem throwey, no be di food, na im di dog plant. Story about tree wey dey bear cooked food wey dem wrap fit only make sense for tradition where cooked food wey dem wrap inside leaf na normal tin wey pesin dey carry go farm.
Dog and tortoise make friend, and dia farm dey beside each oda .
One day, wen dem go dia farm, tortoise buy agidi carry go farm . Di dog forget to buy. Wen dem finally stop work make dem chop, hungry dey catch di two of dem, and tortoise start to dey chop im agidi and e no give di dog at all. Wen e don chop finish, e wrap di leaves throwey put for di dog face.
Na im di dog pick dis leaves go plant dem for im farm . Afta some time dem grow con bear agidi.
Con reach one day wey tortoise come farm but e forget to buy agidi . Wen dem don finish work and time to chop reach, di dog go meet di leaves wey e plant con start to sing.
Dem no give di Yorùbá. Na only English Parkinson use write di song .
(Dem no record any Yorùbá text for inside source)
The agidi of the leaf must fall on me.
Translator: John Parkinson interpreter
No Yorùbá survive, and dem no reconstruct anytin. Di English na Parkinson interpreter own, wey dey close to di original words based on di method wey di collector talk say e use . Di line na command to di tree, wey get di same grammatical pattern as Tela magic-spell for rock for alo-the-tortoise-and-tela, "dis rock must open." Two stories from di same collector, di same region and di same sequence use di same pattern for magic command, wey be weak but real evidence about how dem take dey talk dis kain spells for story.
As e dey sing, na so e fall con open. Den di dog chop, and di remnant wey remain e throwey am, e no give tortoise at all.
As dem dey go house, tortoise talk say: how e come be say you, wey be my friend, no get pity, say you dey chop wen you know say hungry dey catch me?
So di dog answer am:
You no remember di last time wen you throw di leaves for my face afta you chop di agidi finish? My agidi na di fruit of dat same leaves wey I plant afta you do dat tin.
Den di tortoise talk say: no wahala, noting too bad for inside dat one . But e think inside im mind say: I fit get di agidi for myself.
One day tortoise go farm alone, and wen e don finish work and hungry dey catch am, e go di dog farm con start to sing give di fruit, say make e fall . But no agidi fall. Instead na big stone fall, scatter tortoise into pieces.
Den all di ants and insects come join am back as dem fit, but dem no fit clear all di marks from im back for where di pieces join togeda. Na so dis marks take remain till today.
How di story take work na exact reciprocity, and dem arrange di story as two matching scenes make di people wey dey listen fit see how dem balance each oda. For di first one, tortoise get food, dog dey hungry, tortoise chop without sharing. For di second one, dog get food, tortoise dey hungry, dog chop without sharing. Same farm, same food, same refusal. Di only difference na say di dog explain imself and tortoise no do so.
Dat explanation na di main moral centre. Di dog no just pay back like dat leave am; e tell tortoise exactly wetin e dey do and why, wey turn ordinary small wickedness into lesson wey dey clear for record. And di source of di dog food na di insult itself: e plant di leaves wey tortoise throw put for im face. Di corpus note for analysis say dis na very clear picture of how pesin fit turn bad tin wey dem do am into sometin useful, and e dey do work wey ordinary phrase like "e pay am back" go lose, because di dog no just retaliate, e cultivate.
Di way tortoise respond na di second tin wey pesin suppose notice. E talk say "no wahala, noting too bad for inside dat one," wey be say e agree small, but immediately e think say "I fit get di agidi for myself," wey mean say e no really care. E understand di complaint but e no learn anytin from am except say tree dey wey e fit rob. Di corpus collect di proverb material about dis one for owe-gratitude-ingratitude-reciprocity.
Di stone na di judgement for di story and e happen without anybody wey talk am. Nobody catch tortoise, nobody beat am, and di dog no even dey dia. Di tree just give am stone instead of food. Compare di oda shell stories, where farmer beat am (alo-ijapa-and-the-rock-of-yams), hungry man smash am (alo-the-tortoise-and-tela), or animals wey dey show gratitude match am by mistake (alo-the-tortoise-helps-the-animals). For here, di punishment no get any agent at all, wey make am look less like revenge and more like how di world dey work: di song dey work for pesin wey plant, no be for pesin wey no plant.
Dis compiler no find any Yorùbá-language version or second collection of dis particular story. Di plot stand on im own different from di oda shell aetiology dem, no bi say na variant of dem, and dem compare di four of dem inside alo-why-the-tortoise-shell-is-marked.
Parkinson own story XI, alo-the-pig-and-the-tortoise, also put Ìjàpá and dog together, but di roles dey arranged differently: for dere, di dog na blacksmith wey trick di tortoise pass, and di story end by explaining why dog dey run up and down. Dem no record weda di people wey tell di stories see di two dog stories as sometin wey connect.
Na evening dem take dey tell am, as dem discuss for yoruba-alo. Dem sing di song two times, one time wey work well by di dog and one time wey lead to death by di tortoise, and di audience go don join di first performance before dem go discover wetin di second one go do. Dat structure, where audience dey sing follow trick wey dey about to kill di pesin wey dey sing am, na di same one wey dey work inside alo-ijapa-and-erin-the-false-coronation.
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.
An Ọ̀yọ́ variant of the magic yam-rock tale in which the rock opens to a song rather than a command, and Ìjàpá betrays his friend by bringing the whole country to empty the store.
A tale in which Ìjàpá roasts a pig in a covered fire-trench and loses the whole carcass to a dog blacksmith who stalls him over a seventh knife, explaining why dogs keep away from tortoises.
The Yorùbá tradition holds no single account of the marks on the tortoise's shell, and this file sets the four sourced narratives side by side to show what varies and what does not.
What John Parkinson's Ọ̀yọ́ tale collection contains, why its stated provenance is unusually candid for its period, and how to read its editor's comparative footnotes.
Twenty-one Yorùbá proverbs on doing and receiving favors, the risk that kindness goes unrewarded or turns to harm, and the moral weight of ingratitude, drawn from a thinner sourced record than most themes in this corpus.