Ìjàpá and the Babaláwo
A tortoise tale in which Ìjàpá tastes a fertility medicine prepared for his wife three times and dies of it, with the Yorùbá text of the Alugbinrin pleading song from a named informant.
Di person wey collect am
Di source wey dem check no name any collector.
How dem dey perform am
Evening telling, treated in `yoruba-alo`; the musical setting, compound duple metre on a hemitonic pentatonic scale with the lead singer setting the pitch, is described with staff notation in Omolaye's article. This tale is the clearest case in the section of a song that repeats. The same seven lines are sung three times at three separate visits, so the audience learns the refrain on the first pass and owns it by the third, and the last performance of it is sung by children who already know it will not work.
Di tale for short
This is a tale about Ìjàpá the tortoise, his wife Yáníbo, and a babaláwo who prepares a medicine to end her barrenness. Ìjàpá is told not to taste it. He tastes it, and his belly swells like a pregnant woman's. He is forgiven twice and killed by the third offence. It carries the best-preserved song in this section: seven call-and-response lines with the refrain Alugbinrin, published in Yorùbá with English glosses from a named informant.
Di tale
As told by Pa. Oduremi Eluwole, aged 80, of Oke-Ola Modakeke, recorded 12 March 2022 and published by Bamidele Omolaye. In the olden days Ìjàpá's wife, yáníbo, was barren. Ìjàpá tried hard to find some means by which she could conceive, and went looking for help from one herbalist after another. After some time he heard of one who was said to be powerful. He went to the man and explained in detail what had happened, and the babaláwo consulted and appeased the oracle. Afterwards the babaláwo told Ìjàpá that his wife would conceive, and that he would prepare a concoction for her to eat. He warned Ìjàpá not to make any attempt to taste it. He made it, handed it over, and sent Ìjàpá home with it. Then Ìjàpá smelled the aroma of the concoction and found it pleasant, and tasted it, thinking the small quantity he took would have no effect on his body. The reverse was the case. His stomach began to swell like that of a pregnant woman. He became very frightened and went back to the babaláwo, and when he got there he began to sing. Original (as printed by Omolaye; see the note on diacritics below) > Call: Bàbáláwo mo wá bé bè > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: Ògùngùn tó se fún mi lérèkàn > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: Ó ní n mó mò mówó ba nu > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: Gbòngbò ònà ló yò mí tèrèrè > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: Mo mó wó ba lè mó mú banu > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: Mo bo júwokùn, ó rí gbendu > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: Bàbáláwo mo wá bé bè > Response: Alugbinrin Literal gloss - Bàbáláwo father-of-the-secrets, the Ifá priest mo wá I have-come bé bè (for bẹ̀bẹ̀) to-plead - Ògùngùn the-medicine tó se fún mi that you-made for me lérèkàn the-other-time - Ó ní he-said n mó mò mówó ba nu that I should-not put hand to-mouth - Gbòngbò ònà the-taproot of-the-path ló yò mí is-what tripped me tèrèrè sprawling - Mo mó wó ba lè I put hand to-ground mó mú banu and put it to-mouth - Mo bo júwokùn I looked at-my-belly ó rí gbendu it appeared swollen Idiomatic English (Omolaye's translation, as printed) > Call: Herbalist I came to beg > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: The concoction you made for me earlier > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: He said I should not have a taste > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: I accidentally hit a taproot and stumbled > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: My hand touched the ground and mistakenly touched my mouth in confusion > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: I look at my stomach as it began to swell > Response: Alugbinrin > Call: Herbalist I came to beg > Response: Alugbinrin Notes on the translation and the diacritics. As with the other songs in this article, the published Yorùbá carries grave and acute accents but no subdots at all: no ẹ, ọ or ṣ appears anywhere in the article. The text is reproduced here exactly as printed rather than corrected, because restoring subdots would supply a reading the source did not give. Read bé bè as standing for bẹ̀bẹ̀, tó se for tó ṣe, and so on. The literal gloss above notes the intended forms where they are unambiguous and is the compiler's, built on Omolaye's English; confidence on the gloss is medium for that reason. Alugbinrin is the refrain and is not translated by Omolaye, who prints it in the English column unchanged. It is one of the well-known Yorùbá tale refrains and its function is rhythmic and participatory rather than semantic. Where a refrain of this kind carries no lexical meaning, the corpus does not invent one for it. The song is a legal defence set to music, and its comedy is entirely in the middle three lines. Ìjàpá does not deny the act. He concedes the instruction, "he said I should not have a taste," and then produces an elaborate accident to account for the tasting: a root in the path tripped him, his hand went down to the ground to break the fall, and his hand then went to his mouth in the confusion. Nobody in the room believes this, including the babaláwo, and the plea works anyway the first two times. That is the joke, and it is the same joke as the closing cry in `alo-ijapa-singing-drum`: Ìjàpá states the facts accurately and files them under the wrong cause. After hearing the plea, the babaláwo had compassion, forgave him, healed the swollen stomach, and gave him another concoction to take home. Ìjàpá tasted the second one. His stomach swelled again, and he went back and sang the same song. The babaláwo was not pleased, but had empathy a second time, healed him, and gave him a third. Ìjàpá tasted the third. His stomach swelled. Shamelessly, Omolaye's word, he went back to the babaláwo again, and this time the babaláwo refused to help, because he had warned him twice already. The stomach swelled until it burst, and that was how Ìjàpá killed himself with his own greed.
Di song
Original
Call: Bàbáláwo mo wá bé bè Response: Alugbinrin Call: Ògùngùn tó se fún mi lérèkàn Response: Alugbinrin Call: Ó ní n mó mò mówó ba nu Response: Alugbinrin Call: Gbòngbò ònà ló yò mí tèrèrè Response: Alugbinrin Call: Mo mó wó ba lè mó mú banu Response: Alugbinrin Call: Mo bo júwokùn, ó rí gbendu Response: Alugbinrin Call: Bàbáláwo mo wá bé bè Response: Alugbinrin
Word-for-word gloss
- Bàbáláwo father-of-the-secrets, the Ifá priest mo wá I have-come bé bè (for bẹ̀bẹ̀) to-plead
- Ògùngùn the-medicine tó se fún mi that you-made for me lérèkàn the-other-time
- Ó ní he-said n mó mò mówó ba nu that I should-not put hand to-mouth
- Gbòngbò ònà the-taproot of-the-path ló yò mí is-what tripped me tèrèrè sprawling
- Mo mó wó ba lè I put hand to-ground mó mú banu and put it to-mouth
- Mo bo júwokùn I looked at-my-belly ó rí gbendu it appeared swollen
Idiomatic English
Call: Herbalist I came to beg Response: Alugbinrin Call: The concoction you made for me earlier Response: Alugbinrin Call: He said I should not have a taste Response: Alugbinrin Call: I accidentally hit a taproot and stumbled Response: Alugbinrin Call: My hand touched the ground and mistakenly touched my mouth in confusion Response: Alugbinrin Call: I look at my stomach as it began to swell Response: Alugbinrin Call: Herbalist I came to beg Response: Alugbinrin
Di source wey dem check no name any collector.
Di different versions
This tale circulates on the modern retelling site `yorubatales.com` under the title "How Tortoise (Ijapa)'s Stomach Became Hollow," which frames it as an aetiological tale about the tortoise's body. Omolaye's informant does not give it that ending: in his version the belly bursts and Ìjàpá dies, with no explanatory coda about the shape of the living animal. Whether the aetiological frame is traditional or a modern addition cannot be settled from the sources consulted, and the difference is recorded rather than resolved. The site carries no per-tale attribution and nothing is quoted from it here. No second scholarly transcription of this tale was located by this compiler.