Why Women Have Long Hair
An aetiological comedy in which a woman digs a pit to trap her enemy, falls into it herself, is pulled out by hair that stretches as they pull, and is envied into starting a fashion.
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An aetiological comedy in which a woman digs a pit to trap her enemy, falls into it herself, is pulled out by hair that stretches as they pull, and is envied into starting a fashion.
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 one short aetiological comedy wey dey explain why women get long hair. One woman dig pit for night for di road wey her enemy dey pass go well, she come fall inside am herself di next morning, and dem drag her come out by her hair, wey stretch as her friends dey pull am. Shame first catch her, afta dat she proud, come dey laugh women wey get short hair till all of dem start to jump enter di pit make dem pull their hair too. Na M. I. Ogumefu record am for English inside 1929 .
Two women quarrel, and one of dem go out secretly for night go dig deep pit for middle of di path wey lead from her enemy house go di village well .
Early next morning, when everybody dey go well go fetch water with jar balance for their head, dis woman fall inside di pit and cry loud-loud dey call for help .
Her friends run go meet her and, as dem hold her hair, dem begin pull her come out of di pit . As e surprise dem, her hair stretch as dem dey pull am, and by di time she reach road safely, her hair long reach man arm.
Dis make shame catch her well-well, and she run go hide herself .
But afta some time, she see say her long hair fine, and dat time she feel very proud and look down on all di short-haired women, dey laugh dem . When dem see dis one, jealousy over catch dem, and dem begin shame for their short hair.
Na men hair we get, dem tell each other. How e go fine reach to get long hair!
So one by one dem jump enter di pit, and their friends pull dem come out by their hair .
And na so dem, and all women afta dem, take get long hair .
Di mechanism na chain of four reversal wey happen inside less than three hundred words, and di comedy dey inside how fast each one dey turn over.
Di trap catch di trapper. She dig di pit for night, for dark, inside road wey she herself dey use, and waka enter inside am as day just break. Di tori no waste words on irony, e just report di fall like dat.
Di injury turn to advantage. To drag person come out by hair na painful disgrace, and wetin come out of am na feature wey make shame catch her first sotey she run go hide.
Di shame turn to pride. "Afta some time she see say her long hair fine." Nothing change except di way she judge am.
Di pride turn to fashion. Di short-haired women, wey get normal hair just now, come "full of jealousy" and reclassify theirself: "na men hair we get." Den dem line up to jump enter pit.
Di corpus note as analysis say di tori dey about how standard of beauty dey take enter, and say e put di mechanism strictly inside mockery instead of admiration. Di short-haired women no want long hair because say long hair fine. Dem want am because person wey get am laugh dem, and their own hair turn to defect di moment somebody call am defect. Na di same move di magician do di birds inside alo-the-voices-of-birds, wia one group of contented brown birds agree say "e really pity say dem ugly so" as soon as somebody talk am. Two tori inside one collection, wey use di same device: na when dem call something defect e take become defect.
Di ending plain well-well and di corpus draw attention go wetin e no talk. No punishment dey for di woman wey dig di pit, no reconciliation with di enemy wey she dig am for, and no comment on di wisdom of whole village to throw theirself inside hole. Di quarrel wey start everything just drop like dat. owe-enmity-quarrel-reconciliation gather proverb material on quarrels, and owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance on appearance.
By di way, di enemy no show face again. Na her make di pit dey and she never fall inside am.
Dis tori dey for di light end of di aetiological range wey dem document inside dis section, and e make sense to notice di contrast. alo-why-the-tortoise-shell-is-marked gather four stories wia body get permanent mark from violence and repair wey no balance; alo-why-the-ajao-remained-unburied explain fact about bat through dead body wey nobody claim. Dis one explain feature of every woman wey dey alive through joke about pit.
Di corpus note say di aetiological form itself no carry any special moral weight inside Yorùbá àlọ́: na shape wey dey available for tragedy, punishment, ethical instruction, or farce, and na di person wey dey tell am dey choose. Na di same argument dem make with plenty explanation about competing explanations inside alo-why-the-tortoise-shell-is-marked.
Di compiler no find any Yorùbá-language version and no second collection of dis tori. Di record wey dem check keep quiet on variation and on any song.
Na evening telling, wey dem treat inside yoruba-alo. Dem no record any song, and as Ogumefu talk say him remove songs (alo-ogumefu-1929-as-a-source), e mean say dis no be evidence say song no dey. For dis length di tori na one sustained joke with repeated physical action, women wey dem dey drag come out of pit by their hair, wey di teller fit stretch as long as people for room still dey laugh.
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 aetiological tale in which a jealous magician talks a grove of plain brown songbirds into trading their voices for bright feathers, explaining why the most beautiful birds cannot sing.
Two competing aetiologies of the leopard's markings printed consecutively by one collector, one in which Akiti the hunter's arrows leave dark marks on an invulnerable leopard, and one in which a bathing woman throws her soapy loofah at him.
What M. I. Ogumefu's 1929 collection offers, and the disqualifying caveat she states in her own preface: the songs of these tales have been deliberately left out.
Thirty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on beauty and its uses, the danger it attracts, adornment, and the gap between how a person looks and what a person is, 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.