What Is Not Here: Gaps, Dead Ends and a Warning About Ìjímèrè

Any corpus wey only record wetin e find dey give wrong picture of di search. Dis file record wetin dis section look for but no find, di collections wey dem identify but wey dem no fit get, and two particular case where material wey dey circulate online for lead pesin straight into mistake.

Di rule say make pesin no fabricate anything wey dey guide dis corpus mean say dem fit request one category, search am well well, but e go end without anything written. Dat one happen several times here, and di empty result dem na findings on dia own.

Ìjímèrè di monkey: dem no see any trickster cycle wey get source

Dis na di most important negative finding for dis section, and e get trap join body.

Wetin dem no fit find. No sourced Yorùbá tori wey Ìjímèrè be di trickster protagonist, and no monkey cycle wey dey comparable to di Ìjàpá cycle. Long search no bring out anything wey dis compiler fit cite.

Wetin Ìjímèrè really be. Di Yorùbá name for di patas monkey, Erythrocebus patas. Di main place e dey show face for di oral tradition record wey dey here na proverb, no be tori: Ìjímèrè ṣọ́gigùn, kóo má baà gungi aládi, patas monkey, watch di tree wey you dey climb, make you no go climb tree wey aládi full, wey dem dey take talk about pesin wey dey act without sense, and aládi na small black ant wey dey nest for tree body. Di corpus record dis one from second hand through di research wey dem check and e never verify am against any named proverb collection, so dem mark am as medium confidence and dem no give am three-layer treatment here.

Di trap. To search "Ijimere Yoruba" dey quickly lead pesin to Obotunde Ijimere, di author wey dem credit for The Imprisonment of Obatala and oda play inside Heinemann African Writers Series. Obotunde Ijimere na pen name wey Ulli Beier invent, one German editor and scholar wey stay long for Nigeria. Di name mean roughly "Monkey don come back." Na literary pseudonym e be, no be folklore character, and researcher wey see am without knowing dat one go conclude say Ìjímèrè tradition dey where none no dey at all.

Di corpus flag dis one clear clear because di mistake dey easy to make, di name dey prominent for library catalogue dem, and nothing dey di surface of dose catalogue entry wey reveal am.

Wetin monkeys really dey do for di record wey get source. For places where monkey appear for material wey dis section fit source, dem never be trickster:

• Wise advisers. For Frobenius account of how Ifá take reach human beings hand, Èṣù (Frobenius "Edju") go meet palm tree dem and di monkey dem give am sixteen nut, and come direct am say: "Edju, you no know wetin you go do with di nut dem? We go advise you. Na with trick you take get di sixteen nut. Now waka round di world and ask for dia meaning everywhere. You go hear sixteen saying for each of di sixteen place" 1. Di monkey dem see through am and tell am wetin to do.
• Children wey dem transform. Frobenius record one aetiology where Ọbàtálá (im "Oshalla") transform Olókun pikin dem into monkey because dem waka round im house, and e end say: "Since dat time Olokun children dey jump about like ape" 1.
• Community wey get chief. For Parkinson hunter tori, alo-the-hunter-and-the-ape-with-sixteen-tails, di ape dem na society wey get leader, scouts and process to take deliberate, and na dem be di victims.

Na every every be dat. Di corpus state clearly say e no find monkey trickster, and e no claim say none no dey for inside di Yorùbá-language collection dem wey e no fit get.

Di origin of death: dem no write am, on purpose

One Yorùbá origin-of-death tori dey circulate widely: Olódùmarè send message of eternal life through goat, di goat delay dey chop, dem send sheep instead and e spoil di message so dat humans go die, and di true message come reach late to make pesin believe am 2.

Dis section no carry dat tori, and di reason na say every way wey di research follow lead to secondary or tertiary retelling instead of to Yorùbá primary source or collector wey dem name. E no dey Ellis folklore chapter or im index. E no dey Frobenius volume one. Di standard comparative monograph on top dis type across Africa na Hans Abrahamsson, The Origin of Death: Studies in African Mythology (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1951), wey dis compiler never get.

Di particular risk na say di messenger-of-death type spread widely across West Africa, and di version wey dey circulate fit be Ashanti or Krachi material wey come drift enter Yorùbá label 2. To write am up base on unsourced online retelling go be di exact failure wey dis corpus dey avoid. Di honest position na say di tori fit well well be Yorùbá, but dis section no fit establish am.

Anybody wey dey extend dis section suppose check Abrahamsson 1951 2 and Bolaji Idowu, Olódùmarè: God in Yoruba Belief (Longmans, 1962) 3 directly before e add am.

Aetiologies wey dem search for but no find

• Why hare get short tail. Nothing Yorùbá-specific wey get source.
• Why dog and cat dey fight. Nothing wey get Yorùbá source. Note say dis section carry two dog aetiologies from Parkinson, alo-the-dog-and-the-tortoise and alo-the-pig-and-the-tortoise, but di two dey explain di dog relationship with tortoise, no be with cat.
• Why sun and moon dey for sky. Ellis carry related cosmological material inside im chapter on minor gods, including tori of stars as di moon daughters and di sun sons wey dem chase comot from sky, but dem present am as belief instead of as àlọ́ wey get narrative frame, and e belong to di cosmology section of dis corpus rather than folktale section.

Misattribution wey make sense to flag

Several search routes dey bring out "The Story of the Leopard, the Tortoise and the Bush Rat" as if say na Yorùbá 4. No bi so. E come from Elphinstone Dayrell, Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, and na Efik abi Ibibio material 4. Nigeria no bi one tradition, and story wey dem collect for Calabar no bi Yorùbá àlọ́. The corpus record dis one because say pipo dey mistake am well well and dem dey frequently publish the story without wetin show where e from come.

Collections identified but not obtained

Dem dey, dem relate to the work, but the pesin wey compile dis work no fit read dem. Dem mention dem name make anybody wey wan expand dis section know where to go, and make nobody take wetin dey here as complete survey.

Yorùbá-language collections. Na dem bi the main gap, and no amount of English-language search fit replace dem.

• Adeboye Babalọlá, Àkójọpọ̀ Àlọ́ Ìjàpá, Apá Kìíní and Apá Kejì (Ibadan: Oxford University Press, 1973; Part 2 get 1979 date for one source and 1973 for another one, difference wey dis compiler no fit settle). The major Yorùbá-language Ìjàpá collection. Na only the opening formula reach dis section, through Kambon as second-hand source, inside alo-the-opening-formula-and-the-teller.
• Adun Amoo, Àkójọpọ̀ Àlọ́ Àpagbè (2010), wey dem mention for yoruba-alo. Dem no find any excerpt, review abi content listing. Another work wey close to am well well, Adebisi Amoo, Àlọ́ Àpagbè (Ibadan: Evans Brothers Nigeria, 1987), dey inside one published bibliography; dem no fit establish weda na the same work.
• Olatunji Opadotun, Àṣàyàn Àlọ́ Onítàn (Ibadan: Y-Books, 1994).
• Oladipo Yemitan and Olajide Ogundele, Ojú Òṣùpá, Apá Kìíní and Kejì (Ibadan: Oxford University Press, 1970).
• Olagoke Ojo, Ìjàpá Tìrókò Ọkọ Yannibo (Longman Nigeria, 1973; new edition 2005).

English-language scholarly collections.

• Oyekan Owomoyela, Yoruba Trickster Tales (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997). The standard scholarly collection for the Ìjàpá cycle, wey contain 23 tales. No single story title abi line of text from am reach dis section. Every access route dey closed: lending restriction for archive.org, search-inside no dey available, no publisher preview. Dis one na the biggest single gap inside the section, and e dey more frustrating because Owomoyela proverb collection na the backbone of owe-tortoise-ijapa-trickster.
• Harold Courlander and Ezekiel A. Eshugbayi, Olode the Hunter, and Other Tales from Nigeria (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968), wey dem publish for United Kingdom as Ijapa the Tortoise, and Other Nigerian Tales (London: Bodley Head, 1969). 29 stories, mostly Yorùbá, with notes for each story and dedicated essay on Ìjàpá. Eshugbayi come from Ilesha. Lending-restricted; the Ìjàpá essay especially for make sense to get.
• Barbara K. Walker and Warren S. Walker, eds., Nigerian Folk Tales, as told by Olawale Idewu and Omotayo Adu (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1961). The best attribution quality wey dem identify anywhere for dis research, since dem write the names of the narrators for the title page. Lending-restricted.
• Ropo Sekoni, Folk Poetics: A Sociosemiotic Study of Yoruba Trickster Tales (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994). The standard monograph on the narrative poetics of the cycle.
• Abayomi Fuja, Fourteen Hundred Cowries: Traditional Stories of the Yoruba (Oxford University Press). E contain one leopard story, "Concerning the Leopard and the Hedgehog," wey na only the title dem fit confirm.
• Bakare Gbadamosi and Ulli Beier, Not Even God Is Ripe Enough: Yoruba Stories (London: Heinemann Educational, African Writers Series 48, 1968). The story titles sef na proverbs, wey place am direct inside the wisdom-and-folly register wey dis section no get much of. Contents no dey obtainable.
• Harold Courlander, Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes (New York: Crown, 1973). Orisha and heroic material instead of àlọ́.
• Melville J. and Frances S. Herskovits, Dahomean Narrative: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1958).

One article. Olumide Olugbemi-Gabriel, "African Folktales and Social Order: A Study of Selected Yoruba Folktales," inside Ademowo and Oladipo, eds., Engaging the Future in the Present: Issues in Culture and Philosophy (Ibadan: Hope Publications, 2015), pp. 46-55. E dey directly on topic; access dey blocked.

Leads that were checked and found empty

Dem record dis ones make nobody repeat the work.

• Frobenius, The Voice of Africa (1913). Dem search the two volumes completely. No Ìjàpá tales. Volume one get two places wey dem just mention tortoise without story, carved tortoise on top divination casket and tortoises wey dem offer for festival; volume two no get any 1. The two monkey passages wey dem note above na the only usable material 1.
• William Bascom on Yorùbá tortoise tales. Im well-cited Yorùbá articles dey about divination, no bi tortoise tale texts. "The Relationship of Yoruba Folklore to Divining," Journal of American Folklore 56, no. 220 (1943), pp. 127-131, na methodology paper. Dem no find any Ìjàpá tale text wey Bascom collect, and make nobody cite am for one.
• Lomax, "Stories of an African Prince: Yoruba Tales," Journal of American Folklore 26, no. 99 (1913). Truly Yorùbá, fully open access, wey Lattevi Ajaji narrate. Dem download and search am: zero tortoise tales inside the fifteen wey dey there.
• Hambly, Talking Animals (1949). Plenty tortoise references, none Yorùbá; the material na Ovimbundu, from Angola.
• Bọlanle Awe. Her published work na history, especially on Yorùbá women, no bi folktale collection.
• Adeboye Babalọlá beyond the Ìjàpá collection. Im other major work na on ìjálá, the hunters' chant, wey bi separate genre wey dem treat inside yoruba-ijala.

What this means for the section

Three consequences follow, and make pesin read dem alongside every file wey dey here.

Na wetin dey open to public na im dem use build this section. Ellis 1894, Parkinson 1909, Ogumefu 1929, Frobenius 1913, one 2023 peer-reviewed article and one 2025 archive transcript. Na copyright wey don expire and open-access policy shape this sample, no be how the tradition take spread naturally. Three out of the six na British publications from colonial time.

The record for Yorùbá language almost no dey at all. For the tori dem wey dey this section, the songs wey still remain for Yorùbá come from one modern article and two nineteenth-century refrain words. The Yorùbá-language collections wey for change this thing dey listed for up, and person no fit get any of dem.

The Ìjàpá cycle plenty here pass wetin full survey for show. Fifteen of the tori files for this section na tortoise tori, no be say fifteen-sixteenths of the tradition na tortoise, but na tortoise material the open sources preserve reach narrative length. Ellis print four tori wey no be tortoise and six tortoise tori; Ogumefu print thirty-one non-tortoise tori before her tortoise section start, and na only six of dem this compiler fit treat.