Sixty Yorùbá proverbs on cloth as the marker of standing, on clothing worn, patched and outgrown, and on nakedness as the condition beneath every covering, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Aṣọ is cloth, and in the Yorùbá proverb corpus it is the single most reliable index of a person's standing, which is exactly why the corpus spends so much of its energy warning that the index can be faked. Cloth is bought, woven, borrowed, dyed, patched, worn to rags, and finally used to wrap the dead, and each of those stages has proverbs attached to it. What holds the set together is not an aesthetic interest in dress but an economic one: a garment is a durable asset in a society where few things were durable, so how a person acquires cloth, keeps it, and is seen in it says what the proverbs want said about character and means.
Sixty proverbs are given here, the first forty-eight in five groups: what cloth signals and what it hides, borrowed and owned cloth, the making and keeping of cloth, cloth as a marker of station and season, and nakedness. The clothing proverbs are unusually datable, since they name cowrie prices, imported velvet, European shoes and English-named woollen cloth, so the group is a useful check on the assumption that a proverb corpus is uniformly ancient.
The proverbs are given in Owomoyela's texts and translations . Owomoyela's parenthetical usage notes are the basis of the Used when lines; where the wording of a note is his, it is quoted. Anything marked as the compiler's is this corpus's own and carries lower confidence.
Owomoyela prints full standard orthography with tone marks and subdots, and his texts are reproduced here as printed . He attaches no informant to any proverb, holding that proverbs are communal property , so the texts are attested but not localised or dated except where the proverb dates itself from the inside.
Several proverbs in this theme have already been placed elsewhere in the corpus and are not repeated: the white cloth at the palm-oil stall and washed-white clothes are at entries 18 and 17 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, borrowed trousers at entry 15 of the same file, and the elder-in-front-with-cloth-on-shoulder proverb at owe-laziness-waste-improvidence. Where a proverb here has a variant already treated in another file, the Notes say so.
Literal: Ọmọ ẹwà kan ò sí a child of-beauty none exists; ọmọ aṣọ ní ḿbẹ a child of-cloth is-what exists.
Idiomatic: "There is no such thing as a child that is a creation of beauty, but there is something like a child that is a creation of clothing."
Meaning: What people take for natural good looks is usually the effect of what the person is wearing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Clothing, rather than facial beauty, determines the impression one makes on others"
Notes: Ọmọ aṣọ, child of cloth, uses the same ọmọ construction that names a person as the product of a place or a trade, so the phrase claims the well-dressed person is manufactured rather than born. This is the flat contrary of the position taken across owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, where appearance is repeatedly said to prove nothing, and the corpus prints both without adjudicating.
Literal: Bàtà ò jẹ́ ká mọ agésẹ̀ òyìnbó shoes do-not let us know the-toe-lacking white-man; aṣẹ́ aṣọ létí the-hemming of-cloth at-the-edge kò jẹ́ ká mọ ẹni tí ń fi aṣọ ìyà bora does-not let us know who covers-himself with-the-cloth of-suffering.
Idiomatic: "Shoes keep one from knowing which white man has lost his toes; hemming dresses keeps people from knowing who is clothed in wretchedness."
Meaning: A finished edge conceals the state of the cloth, and a shoe conceals the state of the foot.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Outward appearances often belie private woes"
Notes: The proverb picks two coverings that work by concealing an edge, which is a precise mechanical observation rather than a general remark about appearances. Aṣọ ìyà, the cloth of suffering, is the corpus's phrase for poverty worn on the body, and it recurs in the nakedness group below. The reference to shoes and to òyìnbó, the European, dates the text to the era of coastal contact or later.
Literal: Ọ̀rọ̀ wo what speech ló wà lẹ́nu is in-the-mouth-of alaṣọ pípọ́n the-owner-of-reddened cloth?
Idiomatic: "What sort of speech can there be in the mouth of the person whose clothes are brown from dirt?"
Meaning: The state of a person's cloth disqualifies them from speaking.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People with blemishes should keep a low profile"
Notes: Pọ́n is the verb for reddish-brown, the colour laterite dust turns cloth, so the accusation is specifically of not washing. The proverb belongs with entry 4 and with the entries on hearing rights in owe-ears-hearing-mouth, because in all of them the right to be heard is treated as something a person can forfeit through visible circumstance rather than through anything said.
Literal: Ẹnu asoṣọ kọ́ the-mouth of-the-one-who-ties-a-loincloth kì í tó ọ̀rọ̀ is-never equal-to speech.
Idiomatic: "The mouth of the person whose garment is a loincloth is never welcome in a discussion."
Meaning: The man in a loincloth is not heard, because a loincloth is what a man wears when he owns nothing else.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A shiftless person has no privileges in the community"
Notes: This proverb is also given in owe-speech-silence-tongue, where it is read for what it says about who holds the floor. It is repeated here because its premise is a garment: the ṣọkọ́ or loincloth is a working undergarment, and appearing in it alone is the visible fact from which the disqualification follows. Owomoyela's gloss converts a statement about dress into a statement about character, which is the corpus's habitual move and worth marking rather than accepting.
Literal: Bí obìnrín bá máa dán èké wò if a-woman intends to-try deceit, a da aṣọ dúdú bora she throws dark cloth over-herself.
Idiomatic: "When a woman wishes to engage in mischief, she wears dark clothing."
Meaning: The choice of dark cloth announces the intention it is meant to hide.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A woman's furtiveness portends mischief"
Notes: The proverb is self-defeating as concealment advice and is used as observation, not instruction: it says the disguise is legible. Owomoyela prints a companion at 3714 that generalises away from women, Bí òru bí òru ní ń ṣe aláṣọdúdú, on the person in black longing for nightfall, which is treated in owe-secrets-gossip-rumour; the pair shows the same image applied once to women specifically and once to anyone with secret business.
Literal: Aṣọ abilà striped cloth gbogbo ló lórúkọ all of-it has a-name.
Idiomatic: "Every striped cloth has a name."
Meaning: Every pattern is a named and recognised type, so nothing is anonymous.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Every person has a name; an offender has a name to be mentioned"
Notes: Yorùbá handwoven cloths carry specific pattern names, and the proverb's force depends on that being common knowledge: a weaver, a trader, or any adult could name a stripe on sight. The application to accusation, that the offender has a name and should be named, is Owomoyela's and turns a fact about textile classification into an argument against vagueness in speech.
Literal: Ọ̀bún the-filthy-person ba irú aṣọ jẹ́ spoils the-kind of-cloth.
Idiomatic: "The filthy person destroys the appeal of a style of clothing."
Meaning: Once the wrong person is seen in a pattern, the pattern is finished for everyone else.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Anything a filthy person touches is ruined for others"
Notes: The proverb assumes an economy in which everyone can see who else owns which cloth, which is what makes association contagious. Irú aṣọ is the type or class of cloth, so what is destroyed is not the individual garment but the category, and this is the only proverb in the file where the loss falls on people who never wore the thing.
Literal: Ẹní bá ṣẹ̀ jalè lẹ́ẹ̀kan whoever has-once stolen, bó bá fàrán ogún ọ̀kẹ́ bora if he covers-himself with-velvet of-twenty-times-twenty-thousand, aṣọ olè ló wọ̀ it-is a-thief's cloth he-wears.
Idiomatic: "Whoever stole once, if he or she later drapes himself or herself in expensive velvet cloth, is draped in stolen goods."
Meaning: Nothing subsequently bought clears the record; the cloth is read through the history.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A reputation once ruined is impossible to mend"
Notes: Àrán is velvet, an imported luxury textile, and ogún ọ̀kẹ́, twenty times twenty thousand cowries, is a conventional enormous sum rather than a price, so the proverb names the most expensive thing available and says it does not work. The cowrie reckoning dates the text to before the currency's collapse in the later nineteenth century, and the velvet places it after Atlantic trade goods were circulating inland.
Literal: Bí ajá bá ń wọ agbádá iná if the-dog wears a-gown of-fire, tí àmọ̀tẹ́kùn ń wẹ̀wù ẹ̀jẹ̀ and the-leopard wears a-gown of-blood, tí ológìní ń sán àkísà jìnnì mọ́ dìí and the-cat ties a-rag around its-waist, ẹgbẹ́ apẹranjẹ ní ń ṣe it-is the-company of-flesh-eaters they-belong-to.
Idiomatic: "If the dog wears a garment of fire, and the leopard wears a dress of blood, while the cat ties a tattered rag around its waist, it is nevertheless a member of the clan of carnivores."
Meaning: Three animals dressed in three different registers of splendour and squalor are still the same kind of animal.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Innate quality, not clothing, is what matters"
Notes: The three garments are graded deliberately, the agbádá being the large formal gown, the ẹ̀wù an ordinary one, and the àkísà a rag, so the proverb runs the whole social scale of dress and then cancels it. Ẹ̀wù ẹ̀jẹ̀, garment of blood, is a fixed Yorùbá image for a red or ripening surface and recurs at 4586 of the locust bean and at 2215 of the bitter tomato, which is why the phrase does not read as violent in the original the way it does in English. This is the file's sharpest statement of the case against dress as evidence, and it belongs beside entry 1, which asserts the reverse.
Literal: À-gbàbọ̀-ọ ṣòkòtò borrowed trousers, bí kò fúnni lẹ́sẹ̀ if they-are-not tight at-the-leg a ṣo ni they-hang-loose on-one; rẹ́mú-rẹ́mú exactly ni ohun ẹni ḿbá ni mu is-how one's own thing fits one.
Idiomatic: "Borrowed trousers, if they are not too tight around the legs, will be too loose; one's own things fit one exactly."
Meaning: A borrowed garment fails in one direction or the other, never neither.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Borrowed articles are never like one's own"
Notes: The ideophone rẹ́mú-rẹ́mú means fitting snugly and exactly, and English has no single word for it, so the translation spends three words where the Yorùbá spends one reduplicated form. Owomoyela prints the same text again at 121 without a gloss and a fuller three-clause version at 215 that begins with borrowing money to spend, which shows the proverb circulating as a fitting joke, a lending rule, and a debt warning depending on how much of it is spoken.
Literal: À-wín-ná-wó borrowing-money-to-spend ò yẹ ni does-not suit one; à-gbà-bọ̀-ọ ṣòkòtò borrowed trousers ò yẹ ọmọ èèyàn do-not suit a-person; bí kò fún ni lẹ́sẹ̀ if they-are-not tight at-the-leg a dòrògí they-become hard-to-remove; ohun ẹni ní ń yẹ ni it-is one's own thing that suits one.
Idiomatic: "Borrowing-money-to-spend does not speak well of one; borrowed trousers do not become a person: if they are not tight around the legs, they are difficult to remove; it is one's own things that fit."
Meaning: Borrowed money and borrowed clothing are the same failure, and the trousers are the visible version of it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not live beyond one's means"
Notes: The full form makes explicit what entry 10 leaves implicit, that the trousers are an illustration of credit rather than a topic in themselves, which is why this proverb sits in the corpus's economic argument as well as its clothing one. The compressed nominal à-wín-ná-wó is built on the same à- frame as à-gbàbọ̀, so the two halves of the proverb are grammatically parallel and the parallel is the argument.
Literal: Alágbàró ò yege the-borrower-of-a-wrapper is-not in-the-clear; aláṣọ á gbà á bọ̀ dọ̀la the-owner-of-the-cloth will take it back tomorrow.
Idiomatic: "She who borrows a wrapper skirt to wear is not home free; the owner of the cloth will take it back tomorrow."
Meaning: The borrowed garment is on loan against a deadline, so the display it produces is temporary by construction.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is nothing like having one's own"
Notes: Owomoyela prints this text twice, at 1335 and again at 1975, with identical wording and identical gloss, one of a number of duplications in the collection that indicate independent sources converging on the same item. Yege, to be clear or acquitted, is a legal-flavoured word, so the borrower is described as still liable rather than merely still indebted.
Literal: Ẹni tí a bá ń dáṣọ fún the-one for-whom we make cloth kì í ka èèwọ̀ does-not enumerate taboos.
Idiomatic: "The person who is clothed by others does not list what he will not wear."
Meaning: Whoever is being dressed at another's expense has no standing to specify.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Those who depend on the charity of others must be satisfied with whatever they can get"
Notes: Èèwọ̀ is the word for a ritual prohibition, a real and serious category treated at owe-taboo-pollution-forbidden, so applying it to a dependant's fussiness about cloth is deliberately sarcastic: the proverb says his preferences are being dressed up as prohibitions. Owomoyela cross-references 81, the proverb about refusing a junior sibling's gift of bean-grit-patterned cloth .
Literal: Àbúrò rẹ ń dáṣọ fún ọ your junior sibling makes cloth for you, o ní o ò lo elékuru you say you do-not wear the-bean-grits-pattern; ta ni ń lo alákàrà who then wears the-bean-fritter-pattern?
Idiomatic: "Your junior brother [or sister] buys clothing for you, and you say you will not wear anything with bean-grits patterns; who has the right to opt for clothing with a bean-fritter pattern?"
Meaning: The recipient of a gift has rejected the cheaper pattern while having no claim on the dearer.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should act in accordance to one's station in life"
Notes: Elékuru and alákàrà are named cloth patterns whose names come from two cheap bean foods, èkuru the steamed bean pudding and àkàrà the fried bean fritter, so the proverb is refusing a distinction between two things at the bottom of the same range. The pair of foods reappears at entries 33 and 39 below in a quite different argument, which is a good example of how a small stock of everyday referents gets reused across the corpus.
Literal: Orogún ìyá ẹ-ẹ́ dáṣọ fún ọ your mother's co-wife made cloth for you, o ní kò balẹ̀ you say it does-not reach-the-ground; mélòó nìyá ẹ-ẹ́ dá fún ọ tó fi kú how-many did-your-mother make for you before she died?
Idiomatic: "Your mother's co-wife made a garment for you, and you complain that it is not long enough; how many did your mother make for you before she died?"
Meaning: The complaint about the length is measured against a mother who made none at all.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People dependent on charity should be grateful rather than difficult to please"
Notes: This proverb is also treated in owe-family-lineage-compound for what it says about the orogún, the co-wife whose relation to a rival's child the corpus generally reports as hostile; here the co-wife is the one who provides. Balẹ̀, to reach the ground, is the standard of a properly cut wrapper, as at entry 27, so the complaint is technically legitimate and dismissed anyway.
Literal: Ẹni tí ó ní èjìká the-one who has shoulders ò lẹ́wù has-no gown; ẹni tó lẹ́wù the-one who has-a-gown ò léjìká has-no shoulders.
Idiomatic: "The person who has a shoulder has no garment; the one who has a garment has no shoulder."
Meaning: The body fit to carry the gown and the gown itself are never in the same possession.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Need and supply are often mismatched"
Notes: Yorùbá gowns hang from the shoulders and are judged by how they sit there, so the shoulder is the relevant body part and not an arbitrary one. Owomoyela prints the companion at 4216 on the head and the cap, and cross-references a run of preceding entries in the same mismatch pattern , which shows the formula being productive rather than fixed. Compare entry 42 of owe-hands-feet-working-body on the general Yorùbá habit of arguing through body parts.
Literal: Àbùlẹ̀ ní ḿmú aṣọ tọ́ patching is-what makes cloth last; ẹni tí kò tọ́jú àbùlẹ̀ whoever does-not keep patching-material yó ṣe ara-a rẹ̀ ló fò aṣọ will make himself the-one-who-lacks cloth.
Idiomatic: "Patching extends the life of clothes; whoever does not save materials for patching deprives himself or herself of clothing."
Meaning: The scraps kept for repair are what determine how long the garment lasts.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everything has its use; conserve your resources"
Notes: The proverb is a piece of household technique before it is a moral, and its logic depends on handwoven cloth being made in narrow strips that can be matched from offcuts. It sits against entry 21, which observes that scarcity of cloth teaches its own thrift, and the two together give the corpus's practical position on repair.
Literal: Aṣọ tó kù ni kù the-cloth that remains to-one ní ń jẹ́ gọgọwú is-what is-called the-best.
Idiomatic: "Whatever clothing one is left with is one's best."
Meaning: Best is a position in a set, so it is occupied by whatever survives.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One makes the most of what one has"
Notes: Gọgọwú names a superior cloth, so the joke is that the word for a grade is being applied to a remainder. The proverb has the same shape as entry 19, which extends the logic to the point where the remainder is a rag, and the two make a compressed argument about relative standards.
Literal: Bí a kò bá dáṣọ lé aṣọ if we have-not made cloth upon cloth, a kì í pe ọ̀kan lákìísà we do-not call one of-them a-rag.
Idiomatic: "If one has not acquired one garment after another, one does not call the first one a rag."
Meaning: A garment is only a rag once there is a replacement, so the category is created by the second purchase.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One may not disdain an old tool until one is able to replace it"
Notes: Àkísà, rag, is one of the corpus's fixed markers of destitution and appears at entries 9, 22 and 31 in this file. The proverb's epistemic point, that the low category comes into being with the arrival of the higher one, is exactly the argument entry 18 makes from the opposite end, and neither is available in English as a single word the way àkísà is.
Literal: Àkísà aṣọ a-rag of-cloth la fi ń ṣe òṣùká is-what we use to-make the-head-pad.
Idiomatic: "A rag is what one uses as a carrying pad."
Meaning: The worn-out cloth is exactly what the dirty job requires.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's most valuable possessions are not for careless use"
Notes: The òṣùká is the coiled cloth pad placed on the head under a load, and it is soaked and abraded in use, which is why nothing good goes into it. Owomoyela's gloss inverts the proverb's surface, reading a statement about what rags are for as a rule about what good cloth is not for, and the inversion is his: the Yorùbá sentence contains no prohibition.
Literal: Ohun tí kò jẹ́ ká ṣọ pé méjì the-thing that does-not let one's cloth reach two ni ò jẹ́ kó dú is-what does-not let it become-black.
Idiomatic: "The same thing that keeps one from having more than one item of clothing also keeps that one from getting blackened by dirt."
Meaning: Owning a single garment forces the care that keeps it clean.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Misfortune teaches fortitude; scarcity teaches thrift"
Notes: The proverb is one of the corpus's few genuinely consoling statements about poverty and it earns the consolation with a mechanism rather than a sentiment: the man with one cloth washes it because he must wear it tomorrow. It stands directly against entry 17 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, where clean clothes are said to make the poor indistinguishable from the rich, and read together the two say the poor man's cleanliness is both compelled and rewarded.
Literal: Aláṣọ-kan the-owner-of-one-cloth kì í náà ná rẹ does-not bargain until-he-is-soaked.
Idiomatic: "A person who has only one set of clothing does not bargain until he is wet."
Meaning: The man with one garment cannot afford to stand haggling in the rain.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person with meager resources should husband them judiciously"
Notes: Owomoyela prints the twin at 183, Aláṣọ-kan kì í ṣeré òjò, "A person who has only one set of clothing does not play in the rain," and cross-references each to the other . The pair distinguishes the two ways a single-cloth man could get wet, by transacting and by playing, and the corpus keeps both because the market case is about discipline and the play case is about recklessness.
Literal: Adùn-ún tán lára aṣọ ogóje the-pleasure is-finished from a-cloth-of-140-cowries; a nàán han ẹni méje one spreads-it to-show seven people; a bẹ̀ẹ́ wò a rí iná méje one examines-it and finds seven lice; ó di ọjọ́ keje ó fàya on the-seventh day it tore.
Idiomatic: "One's delight in a cloth costing 140 cowries is over; one spreads it out to show to seven people, one finds seven lice, and on the seventh day it is torn."
Meaning: The cheap cloth's whole career is seven days long.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One gets what one pays for"
Notes: The proverb builds on the number seven four times over, in the price ogóje which is seven twenties, the seven viewers, the seven lice and the seventh day, and this insistence is the poetic form of the argument rather than a report. Ogóje, 140 cowries, is a real and low price, which lets the proverb date itself to the cowrie economy and identify the class of goods it is mocking.
Literal: Bí a sọ́ bá pẹ́ lápò if a cloth stays-long in-the-bag, á bu it grows-mould.
Idiomatic: "If a cloth remains too long in the sack, it goes moldy."
Meaning: Storage is not preservation; the unused thing spoils where it lies.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If a person stays long enough in one place, he or she acquires the traits of that place"
Notes: The gloss reads the mould as acquired local character rather than as decay, which is a real shift in the direction of the metaphor and is Owomoyela's; the Yorùbá says only that the cloth spoils. Compare entry 41 of owe-road-journey-traveller on staying put, where the same physical fact is available to a different argument.
Literal: Ó di ọjọ́ tí aláró bá kú it-becomes the-day the-dyer dies ká tó mọ oye aṣọ tó gbà rẹ before we know the-number of-cloths she took to-dye.
Idiomatic: "It is on the day of the dyer's death that one knows how many pieces of cloth she had taken in to dye."
Meaning: The scale of a person's work is only counted when the work stops.
Used when: Owomoyela: "When one dies, one's every secret becomes public knowledge"
Notes: This proverb is treated in owe-secrets-gossip-rumour for what it says about disclosure. It is noted here because its subject is the indigo dyeing trade, which was women's work organised in compounds with deep pits, and the proverb's whole force rests on the dyer holding other people's cloth: her death converts a private ledger into a public inventory of who owned what.
Literal: Òjò ò dá the-rain does-not stop, ìrì ò da the-dew does-not cease; eji wẹ́rẹ́ gba ọjọ́ aláṣọ fine drizzle takes the-day of-the-cloth-seller.
Idiomatic: "The rain does not stop, and the drizzle does not stop; the gentle precipitation takes the day away from the cloth seller."
Meaning: Weather too slight to be a disaster ends the trading day anyway.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A succession of inconsiderable but persistent problems keeps one from attending to important matters"
Notes: Cloth is the one market commodity that cannot be displayed in rain, so the cloth seller is the exactly correct trader for this proverb and not an interchangeable one. Eji wẹ́rẹ́, fine drizzle, is graded below òjò, so the Yorùbá names three intensities of falling water in one sentence where English has to reach for adjectives.
Literal: À-ró-kan-lẹ̀ wrapping-until-it-touches-the-ground la aṣọ ayaba is-the-way-of the-queen's cloth; à-wà-kan-lẹ̀ digging-until-it-reaches-the-bottom ni ti yàrà is-the-way-of the-moat.
Idiomatic: "Wrapping-from-waist-to-the-floor is the style of the queen's wrapper; digging-down-to-the-deepest-bottom is the requirement of the dry moat."
Meaning: The wrapper and the defensive ditch are both defined by going all the way.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whatever one has to do, one must be thorough and not satisfied with half measures"
Notes: The two compressed nominals are built on the identical à- ... kan-lẹ̀ frame, reaching the ground, and the pun is that lẹ̀ means the ground in both cases while the direction of travel is opposite, down for the moat and down-and-outward for the wrapper. The yàrà is the defensive dry ditch dug round Yorùbá towns, several of which survive archaeologically, so the proverb pairs the most decorative and the most military of thorough jobs. Owomoyela prints the text twice, at 779 and 2451.
Literal: Àgbẹ̀ ò dáṣọ lóṣù the-farmer does-not make cloth monthly, àfi ọdún only yearly.
Idiomatic: "A farmer does not make new clothes monthly, only annually."
Meaning: The farmer's income arrives once a year, so his wardrobe does too.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The reward for one's labor is often a long time coming"
Notes: New cloth at the annual festival is the standard Yorùbá occasion for it, so the proverb is describing normal practice rather than deprivation. It belongs with entry 34 on the season prescribing the cloth, and with entry 39 of owe-work-farming-diligence on the farmer's calendar: the corpus consistently treats the agricultural year as the unit in which farming people's purchases are counted.
Literal: Ṣòkòtò tí ń ṣiṣẹ́ àrán the-trousers that do the-work of-velvet, oko ni ń gbé it-is-the-farm they live-on.
Idiomatic: "The pants that do the work that purchases the velvet fabric stay on the farm."
Meaning: The garment that earns the luxury garment never leaves the field.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The real workers and producers of wealth are likely to be less in the public eye than their beneficiaries"
Notes: The proverb sets working trousers against imported velvet, which is the file's cleanest statement of the gap between production and display, and it is the clothing version of the argument made about food at entry 29 of owe-work-farming-diligence. Àrán dates the text to the era of imported textiles, so this is a proverb about a trade good, not about ancient wealth.
Literal: Ìyá tó bí aṣọ the-mother who bore cloth ló bí ẹ̀wù is-who bore the-gown.
Idiomatic: "The mother who gave birth to the cloth also gave birth to the shirt."
Meaning: The wrapper and the sewn gown are the same substance in two forms.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Two or more seemingly different things are essentially the same"
Notes: Aṣọ is cloth as material or as an untailored wrapper, and ẹ̀wù is a made-up garment, so the proverb states a real technical relation between a bolt and the thing cut from it. The kinship framing, one mother bearing both, is the corpus's standard way of asserting identity of kind and is the same move made at 5099 on the trousers and the loincloth and at 5097 on the three kings; the family idiom used for this purpose is treated at owe-blood-bone-kinship-body.
Literal: Ìyá aṣòkòtò the-mother of-trousers ló bí bàǹtẹ́ is-who bore the-loincloth.
Idiomatic: "The mother of the trousers also gave birth to the loincloth."
Meaning: Trousers and loincloth are versions of one another, whatever the difference in dignity.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Though apparently different, the two entities are virtually indistinguishable"
Notes: The claim is pointed rather than neutral, because the bàǹtẹ́ is the mark of the man with nothing at entries 4 and 40 while trousers are ordinary dress, so equating them levels a real social distinction. Owomoyela prints 5098, 5099 and 5097 as a run of three variants on the same formula and cross-references them to each other .
Literal: Ìgbà laṣọ the-season determines cloth, ìgbà lẹ̀wù the-season determines the-gown, ìgbà lòdèrée-kókò nÍlọrin the-season determines the-Senegal-dove in-Ìlọrin.
Idiomatic: "The season prescribes cloth; the season prescribes clothes; the season determines the presence of the Senegal dove in Ìlọrin."
Meaning: What is worn is settled by the time of year, as the bird's presence is.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everything in its proper time or season"
Notes: The third clause supplies the proof by naming something nobody controls, which is the corpus's usual method for making a social convention look like a natural fact. Placing the dove in Ìlọrin ties the text to a specific town at the northern edge of Yorùbá country, one of very few geographic anchors in the clothing set.
Literal: Àgbà lẹ́tù the-ẹtù cloth is-the-elder; àlàárì lọba aṣọ àlàárì is-the-king of-cloths.
Idiomatic: Owomoyela's English is "The ẹtù cloth is the elder; the reddish dyed ..." and breaks off at the page edge in the source consulted . The completed sense, that àlàárì is the king of cloths, is the compiler's, drawn from the parallel at 4701 below.
Meaning: The two prestige handwoven cloths are ranked against each other in the vocabulary of seniority and kingship.
Used when: The compiler's reading, since Owomoyela's usage note is not recoverable from the source consulted: cited when ranking two things that are both at the top. Confidence on the usage: medium.
Notes: Ẹtù is the deep indigo guinea-fowl-patterned cloth and àlàárì the crimson-dyed silk-weft cloth, the two most valued Yorùbá handwovens, and the proverb assigns them the two highest social titles available, elder and king. Owomoyela prints the second half alone at 4701 as Àlàárì, baba aṣọ, "Reddish hand-woven cloth, father of all cloths," glossed "No cloth is more glorious than àlàárì" , which confirms the reading given here. The ẹtù gown also appears at 1245 in owe-family-lineage-compound, worn to impress in-laws.
Literal: Kíjìpá kì í ṣe awọ thick-handwoven-cloth is-not leather.
Idiomatic: "Durable hand-woven cloth is not leather."
Meaning: The toughest cloth available is still cloth.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not overestimate the quality of one's possessions or make too much of one's position"
Notes: Kíjìpá is the heavy hand-woven everyday cloth, the durable option, which is what makes it the right subject for a proverb about the limits of durability. Owomoyela prints the expanded form at 1656, Kí á tó mọ̀ pé kíjìpá kì í ṣe awọ, ó di ọdún mẹ́ta, "Before one realizes that tough hand-woven cloth is not leather, three years will have passed," glossed "It may take time, but one will eventually realize that no one is invulnerable to misfortune" , and the three years is the realistic service life of the cloth.
Literal: Kíni ìyá aláṣọ ń tà what does the-cloth-selling woman sell tó yọ ẹgba lọ́wọ́ that she draws a-whip in-hand? Ewúrẹ́ ń jẹ wúlìnì do goats eat woollen-cloth?
Idiomatic: "What does the cloth-selling woman have to sell that she carries a whip in her hand? Do goats eat woolen fabrics?"
Meaning: She is guarding her stock against an animal that has no interest in it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not engage in meaningless or unnecessary activities"
Notes: Wúlìnì is a loan from English "woollen" and marks the text as post-contact, and its presence in a proverb about market goats shows imported cloth had reached ordinary trade. The humour depends on the goat being the standard market nuisance, as at entry 12 of owe-market-as-place, so the woman is performing a familiar defence against the wrong threat.
Literal: Aṣọ tuntun new cloth ní ń ṣe olúwa-a rẹ̀ tòde-tòde is-what makes its owner outdoors-outdoors.
Idiomatic: "A new dress impels its owner to roam outdoors."
Meaning: New cloth cannot be worn indoors, so it manufactures errands.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One is ever eager to show off one's new acquisitions"
Notes: The Yorùbá text is Aṣọ tuntun ní ń ṣe olúwa-a rẹ̀ tòde-tòde ; the reduplicated tòde-tòde, of-outdoors-of-outdoors, is an adverbial intensifier English cannot carry without adding a verb, which is why the translation supplies "roam." The proverb agrees with entry 21 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, that adornment implies a public, and disagrees with nothing in the corpus.
Literal: Òde ò sú aláṣọ-ọ́ lọ public-occasions do-not weary the-owner-of-cloth.
Idiomatic: "Public functions do not faze a person with many clothes."
Meaning: Invitations are only a burden to someone who has to solve the clothing problem each time.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No eventuality can overwhelm a person with abundant resources"
Notes: Yorùbá ceremonial life imposes a real and recurring demand for appropriate cloth, and aṣọ ẹbí, family cloth bought in common for an occasion, is still the mechanism, so this proverb describes an expense schedule rather than a taste. It is the positive companion of entry 22 on the man with one garment.
Literal: Òkú tó bá láṣọ a-corpse that has cloth, Ifẹ̀ ni ń sinín it-is Ifẹ̀ that buries-it.
Idiomatic: "A dead person who owns a wealth of clothes is buried by Ifẹ̀ itself."
Meaning: The estate in cloth summons the whole town to the funeral.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The community itself sees to the funeral of an illustrious person; the problems of a popular person arouse the concern of everyone"
Notes: Cloth was the principal store of wealth that could be displayed at a funeral and distributed after it, so the proverb is describing an inheritance and its social effect, not a sentiment. Ifẹ̀ stands here for the town in its collective capacity, and the choice of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ specifically gives the claim maximum weight; the town's ritual precedence is the subject of 4243 on the crown belonging to Ilé Ifẹ̀ and hats to everyone else.
Literal: Ọ̀lẹ̀lẹ̀-ẹ́ ti ráṣọ wọ̀ the-steamed-bean-pudding already has cloth to-wear, tàkàrà ló ṣòro it-is the-bean-fritter's case that is-hard.
Idiomatic: "The steamed, seasoned bean mash is already blessed with clothes to wear; it is the case of the fried-bean fritters that constitutes a problem."
Meaning: One of the two bean foods is wrapped and the other is not, and the difference was never earned.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Some people are naturally blessed, while others have to struggle for every advantage"
Notes: Ọ̀lẹ̀lẹ̀ is steamed in a leaf wrapper and àkàrà is fried bare, so the proverb reads a cooking method as a wardrobe and the inequality as congenital. The image recurs at entry 41 below with the corn meal in place of the bean pudding, and the pair shows a single joke about wrapped and unwrapped food doing two different arguments, inequality here and precedence there.
Literal: "Ta ni ḿbẹ níbẹ̀" "who is there?" làgbẹ́ fi ń sán ìbàǹtẹ́ wọ̀lú is-why the-farmer ties a-loincloth and-enters-town.
Idiomatic: "'Who is there whose opinion matters?' is the attitude that makes the farmer come into town dressed only in a loincloth."
Meaning: Arriving in town in working undress is a statement that nobody present counts.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People who make a spectacle of themselves show no regard for others"
Notes: The ìbàǹtẹ́ is legitimate on the farm and an insult in town, so the offence is one of place rather than of exposure, and the proverb turns on the town being a place where one is seen by people whose regard is owed. Owomoyela prints the closely related 3314, Àìfinipeni, àìfèèyànpèèyàn laráoko-ó fi ń sán ìbàǹtẹ́ wọ̀lú, "Lack-of-regard-for-anyone, lack-of-regard-for-people makes the bush dweller enter the town in his loincloth," glossed "Self-respect implies respect for others" , where the same act is read as failure of self-respect rather than contempt for others.
Literal: Àti ogún ọdún tí ẹ̀kọ́ ti ń lo aṣọ for the-twenty years that corn-pap has-been wearing cloth, ìhòòhò làkàrà-á wà naked is-how the-bean-fritter has-been.
Idiomatic: "In the twenty years that the corn meal has been wearing clothes, the bean fritters have always been naked."
Meaning: The precedence between the two is old, so neither party should treat it as news.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's better standing than one's rival's is not a recent development"
Notes: Ẹ̀kọ́, maize pap, is set in a leaf wrapper while àkàrà is fried and sold uncovered, which is the physical fact the proverb runs on, and the twenty years is a conventional long span rather than a count. Ìhòòhò is the plain word for nakedness and its application to food is comic rather than shocking, which is worth stating because the same word carries real disgrace at entry 43.
Literal: Òjò ń rọ̀ rain is-falling, Orò ń ké Orò is-crying-out; atọ́kùn àlùgbè tí ò láṣọ méjì the-shuttle-worker who has-not two cloths a ṣe ògèdè ḿgbé sùn will lie down bare.
Idiomatic: "The rain is falling, and the call of the secret cult is sounding loudly outside; the shuttle that lacks a change of clothing will sleep naked."
Meaning: Two obligations arrive at once and the man with one cloth cannot meet either.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one has not made provisions for rainy days, when they come one must suffer the attendant hardship"
Notes: Orò is the cult whose night calls clear the streets, discussed at owe-orisa-tradition-speech, so the proverb stacks a natural emergency and a ritual one in the same sentence and makes the single cloth fail against both. The weaving reference in atọ́kùn àlùgbè puts a textile worker at the centre of a proverb about lacking cloth, which is the file's neatest irony and is not remarked on by the collection.
Literal: Àrífín ilé-ìgbẹ́ the-disgrace of-the-latrine, tí ḿmú ọmọdé wo ìhòòhò àgbà which makes a-child look-at the-nakedness of-an-elder.
Idiomatic: "The disgrace that comes of using a communal latrine exposes an elder's nakedness to the young."
Meaning: Shared facilities destroy the separation that age is entitled to.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The contingencies of living in a group sometimes expose one to insults one would otherwise avoid"
Notes: Seniority in Yorùbá practice is maintained through a set of physical avoidances, and being seen naked by a junior breaks the most basic of them, which is why the proverb calls it àrífín, contempt suffered, rather than mere embarrassment. The proverb is one of the very few in the corpus to name the latrine, and it uses it to make a structural point about compound living rather than a scatological joke.
Literal: Ọmọ́yẹ-ẹ́ ti rìn hòòhò dọ́ja Ọmọ́yẹ has-already walked naked to-the-market; aṣọ ò bá Ọmọ́yẹ cloth does-not meet Ọmọ́yẹ.
Idiomatic: "Ọmọ́yẹ has arrived at the market naked; clothes are too late for Ọmọ́yẹ."
Meaning: The exposure has already been seen, so the remedy has no work left to do.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Matters past remedy are past care"
Notes: The market is chosen because it is the maximum-visibility location in Yorùbá life, treated throughout owe-market-as-place, so the proverb's timing argument depends on the whole town having already looked. Ọmọ́yẹ is a personal name and the proverb is structured as an anecdote, which is a common way for the corpus to fix a general rule to a remembered instance.
Literal: Òbúrẹ́wà ẹni one's ugliness, tòrìṣà ni it-is the-god's; àìraṣọ lò not-having cloth to-wear, tolúwa rẹ̀ ni it-is the-owner's-own.
Idiomatic: "A person's ugliness is the god's doing; the person's lack of clothing is his or her own fault."
Meaning: Appearance is assigned and clothing is earned, so only one of them is chargeable to the person.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must take responsibility for some conditions, but cannot be blamed for others"
Notes: This is the file's central proposition and it is a hard one: the corpus excuses the face and refuses to excuse the wardrobe, which places poverty of dress firmly in the domain of effort. Òrìṣà here is the shaping divinity credited with forming the body, an attribution treated at owe-orisa-tradition-speech, so the exemption is theological rather than charitable. It stands directly against entry 4412, "One is never so poor that one does not own one single item of clothing," and the pair marks the limit of the corpus's patience with the badly dressed.
Literal: Fìrífìrí ò jọ kolombo vaguely is-not like clearly; ìhòòhò ò jọ awọ nakedness is-not like leather.
Idiomatic: "Vaguely is not like clearly; nakedness is not like leather."
Meaning: In each pair the second term is the definite and sufficient one and the first is not.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is better to be clear about something than to be vague, better to be clothed in leather than to be naked"
Notes: The proverb sets a pair of ideophones, fìrífìrí for a fleeting or indistinct impression and kolombo for something plain and complete, beside a pair of physical states, and the parallel makes clarity of speech and covering of the body the same kind of good. Awọ, leather or hide, is the humblest covering that still counts as a covering, which is why it is the term chosen rather than cloth: the proverb sets the bar at the floor. Compare entry 34, where kíjìpá is measured against this same leather and found to be less.
Literal: Ẹni tí ò mú nǹkan wá sáyé whoever did-not bring anything into the-world ò lè mú nǹkan lọ sọ́run cannot take anything to heaven.
Idiomatic: "People who brought nothing into this world cannot expect to depart from it with something."
Meaning: Entry and exit are both empty-handed, so nothing in between is retained.
Used when: Owomoyela: "We came into this world naked, and we shall depart naked"
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note supplies the nakedness that the Yorùbá text leaves as "anything," and the wording of his note is close enough to Job 1:21 and 1 Timothy 6:7 that the possibility of biblical naturalisation has to be entered, as it is for family proverbs at owe-family-lineage-compound. The corpus's own indigenous statement of the same point is entry 48, which routes the argument through cloth and the grave rather than through heaven.
Literal: Òwú là bá gbìn cotton is-what we should plant, a ò gbin idẹ we do-not plant brass; òwú là bá gbìn cotton is-what we should plant, a ò gbìn lẹ̀kẹ̀ we do-not plant beads; àti dẹ àti ìlẹ̀kẹ̀ both brass and beads, ọ̀kan kì í bá ni dé hòrò òkú neither accompanies one to the-grave-pit; ọjọ́ a bá kú the-day we die aṣọ ni ḿba ni lọ it-is cloth that goes with-one.
Idiomatic: "Cotton is what one should plant, not brass; cotton is what one should plant, not beads; as for brass and beads, neither goes with one to the grave; on the day one dies, only cloth accompanies one."
Meaning: Of everything a person accumulates, cloth is the only item that follows the body.
Used when: Owomoyela: "When we die, our jewelry is of no use to us"
Notes: This is the file's last word and it closes the circle that entry 47 opens: the person arrives naked, spends a life acquiring cloth, and is buried in it. The proverb is materially exact, since Yorùbá burial wraps the body in cloth while brass and beads are inherited or reused, and it names cotton as the crop that produces the one durable good, which makes it simultaneously agricultural advice and a statement about death. Hòrò, the grave pit, is a rare and concrete word where English says grave, and 5096 supplies the destitute case: "if it lacks a shroud, it will not lack earth to cover itself"
The twelve entries below were compiled separately and are added here so that the file holds the collected material on clothing in one place. They follow the same sourcing rule as the rest.
Literal: Kíjìpá coarse-hand-woven-cloth laṣọ ọ̀lẹ is-the-cloth of-the-lazy; òfì fine-loom-cloth laṣọ àgbà is-the-cloth of-the-elder; àgbà tí ò ní tòfì an-elder who has-not the-fine-cloth a rọ́jú ra kíjìpá will strive to-buy coarse-cloth.
Idiomatic: "Durable hand-woven cloth is the material for shiftless people; loom-woven cloth is the material for the elders; whichever elder cannot afford loom-woven cloth should strive for durable hand-woven cloth."
Meaning: Cloth quality is graded by social rank, and a person who cannot meet the rank owed to their station should still strive for the next best thing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one cannot have the perfect thing, one should strive to have at least something"
Notes: Kíjìpá is thick, durable, roughly finished cloth that survives hard wear, which is exactly why it suits people too poor or too idle to replace their clothing often; òfì is finer loom-woven cloth that shows its owner does not need that durability. The proverb reads cloth grade as a legible social sentence rather than a matter of taste.
Literal: Irú aṣọ the-likeness of-a-cloth ò tán is-not exhausted nínu àṣà among those-in-fashion.
Idiomatic: "The likeness of a particular type of cloth is not lacking among those in fashion."
Meaning: No one has exclusive claim to a fashionable style; someone else always has its equal.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No one has a monopoly on certain qualities"
Notes: Owomoyela pairs this with the following entry in his collection, on the elephant not being scarce at a particular place, and cross-references the two as making the same point about the absence of monopolies through different vehicles.
Literal: Ará ọ̀run natives of-heaven ò ṣẹ́tí aṣọ do-not hem cloth.
Idiomatic: "Natives of heaven do not sew their hems."
Meaning: People unfamiliar with a place's practices do not follow its customs, because they were never taught them.
Used when: Owomoyela's note reads: "The uninitiated do not know the customs of a place"
Notes: Hemming a cloth's edge is ordinary finishing work; attributing its absence to the dead, who are imagined as having no need to protect a garment from fraying, turns a domestic detail into a figure for anyone operating outside the customs they were never inside to learn.
Literal: A kì í fi aṣọ one does-not use cloth ṣèdìdí keep-it-bundled yọwó while-extracting-money [bargaining].
Idiomatic: "One does not leave cloth in a bundle while bargaining over it."
Meaning: One should inspect what one is buying rather than negotiate blind.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is wise to know what one is negotiating to buy"
Notes: The proverb describes an actual market malpractice, a seller keeping cloth folded so flaws stay hidden during haggling, and generalises from that specific trick to any transaction entered into without inspection.
Literal: Kò sí ìgbà there-is-no time tí a dá aṣọ that we sew a-garment tí a ó rí lè fi wọ̀ that we will not find opportunity to wear.
Idiomatic: "There is no time one makes a dress that one lacks opportunities to wear it casually."
Meaning: What is made for use will find its occasion; effort invested is not wasted for lack of a moment to spend it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There will always be time to enjoy what one has worked for; one should not be unduly impatient"
Notes: The claim is reassurance against impatience rather than a statement about fashion: a garment made now does not need an occasion already in view before it is worth making.
Literal: Labalábá tó dìgbò the-butterfly that collides lẹ́gún with-a-thorn, aṣọ ẹ̀ its-cloth á fàya will tear.
Idiomatic: "The butterfly that collides with a thorn will have its cloth shredded."
Meaning: A fragile thing that carelessly meets its natural hazard is damaged by exactly the encounter it should have known to avoid.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be wise enough to know one's nemesis and avoid it"
Notes: The butterfly's wing is called its cloth, a small figurative extension of aṣọ to an animal's own covering, the same move made with the vulture's shroud in entry 16 below and the mosquito's absent arms elsewhere in the collection.
Literal: Ojú kì í pọ́n ni one's-eyes are-never-so-red [distressed] ká má nìí aṣọ kan that-one has-not a-single garment.
Idiomatic: "One is never so poor that one does not own one single item of clothing."
Meaning: However severe hardship becomes, it is never so total as to strip a person of every last thing.
Used when: The compiler's reading, following Owomoyela's placement of this proverb among statements on human vulnerability: suffering is never absolute.
Notes: Ojú pọ́n, red or distressed eyes, is the standard Yorùbá idiom for hardship, the same idiom found in owe-head-face-ori entry 36; here it is answered by clothing rather than by conduct, and the proverb's comfort is specifically that destitution has a floor.
Literal: They said, "Àparò partridge, aṣọ ẹ ṣe pọ́n báyìí why-is your-cloth so dirty?" Ó ní it said, ìgbà wo what-time laṣọ òun ò níí pọ́n would its-cloth not be-dirty? Before it finishes making two-hundred heaps by-morning, before it scratches the ground continuously until-dawn; what-time would it find leisure to-wash-its-cloth?
Idiomatic: "People asked the partridge, 'Why is your clothing so dirty?' He responded, 'Why would my clothing not be dirty? Given the time it takes me to make a hundred heaps in the morning, and the time I need to scratch the ground at dawn, what time is left for me to wash my clothes?'"
Meaning: A person's neglected appearance is explained by the unrelenting labor that leaves no time to attend to it.
Used when: Owomoyela glosses this among proverbs on the shiftless, though the partridge's own defense argues the opposite: that its dirt is the mark of ceaseless work, not idleness.
Notes: The partridge's scratching for food is here read as farm-labor-like effort, "making heaps," a term for mounding soil for planting, so the bird's dirty plumage is reframed from a natural fact into a worker's grievance. A companion footnote in Owomoyela quotes a related saying about the egret, which washes its clothes somewhere God has hidden from the partridge clan, extending the joke to a second bird.
Literal: A kì í ró aṣọ ajé one does-not wear the-ritual-loincloth sídìí around-the-waist ká dájọ́ òdodo lẹ́bi and judge the-righteous guilty.
Idiomatic: "One does not wear the ritual loincloth for presiding over a trial-by-ordeal and judge the righteous guilty."
Meaning: The office marked by a particular garment carries an obligation that its wearer must not betray.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must not violate the oath one is sworn to observe"
Notes: Aṣọ ajé is the specific ritual garment worn by the presiding figure at a trial by ordeal, so the proverb is not about clothing generally but about a single, official vestment whose wearing constitutes a sworn undertaking; putting it on and then judging falsely is a violation located in the act of dressing itself.
Literal: Aṣọ èṣín last-year's clothing ò yẹni does-not become-one, bíi ti aṣọ ẹ̀wọ̀n kọ́ unlike that of-prison-clothing not-so.
Idiomatic: "Last year's clothing is not proper for people, but that does not apply to prison uniforms."
Meaning: The rule that clothing should be current does not bind a person whose circumstances have already removed their choice.
Used when: Owomoyela's note, as printed, concerns adverse circumstances that may force people to accept what they would otherwise reject.
Notes: A footnote to this entry in Owomoyela records a piece of Yorùbá cloth-lore: a wider-than-usual cloth is said to "have arms," and a wrapper unusually generous in length is said to have the quality of "reaching to the floor," vocabulary this proverb's ordinary sense of èṣín, last year's, plays against.
Literal: Pátá-pátá completely lẹ́gún ń fẹ̀ṣọ borí is-how the-masquerader covers-his-head with-cloth.
Idiomatic: "It is completely that the masquerader covers his head with his shroud."
Meaning: A task or a covering, once undertaken, should be carried out without half measures.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must be thoroughgoing in whatever one does"
Notes: The masquerader's covering is not ordinary dress but the ritual shroud that must conceal the performer's human identity entirely; a partial covering would defeat the institution's whole purpose, which is why the proverb insists on completeness rather than merely recommending it.
Literal: Ooru-ú gba aṣọ the-heat takes cloth lọ́wọ́ onílé from-the-hand of-the-host; ó fi abẹ̀bẹ̀ lé àlejò lọ́wọ́ it puts a-fan into the-guest's hand.
Idiomatic: "Heat takes the garment off the host and hands a fan to the guest."
Meaning: An overpowering condition strips away the formalities that ordinarily separate a person's public dress from a guest's more casual comfort.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Excessive heat forces people out of ceremonious pretenses"
Notes: Removing an outer garment in front of a visitor is ordinarily a breach of hosting decorum; the proverb attributes the breach to the heat itself rather than to the host, which is what licenses the informality without assigning it as a fault.
Three things stand out across these sixty proverbs.
Cloth is treated as property first and as appearance second. Entries 17 to 24 are about acquisition, repair, storage and wear, and their vocabulary is the vocabulary of assets: what a thing costs, how long it lasts, what it is worth once replaced. Even the proverbs that look aesthetic turn out to be economic on inspection, since entry 23 mocks a cloth by its price and entry 29 traces a velvet gown back to the trousers that bought it. This is the reason the clothing set overlaps so heavily with owe-wealth-poverty-money and so little with anything about taste.
Borrowing is the central offence. Entries 10 to 16 form the longest single argument in the file and all of them say the same thing in different registers: a borrowed garment misfits, is reclaimed, disqualifies its wearer from complaint, and reveals the lender's standard. The Yorùbá case is not that borrowing is shameful but that it is legible, which is a sharper claim, and it is the same scepticism about surfaces the corpus applies to speech in owe-speech-silence-tongue.
Nakedness marks the floor of the social person, and the corpus assigns the fall to the person. Entry 46 sets the minimum at leather rather than cloth, entry 4 removes the right to speak from the man in a loincloth, entry 43 shows exposure dissolving the separation that seniority depends on, and entry 45 states outright that a person's lack of cloth is his own fault while his ugliness is the god's. Only entry 42 offers a circumstance rather than a verdict, and even there the man is faulted for not having provided a second cloth. The corpus is markedly less generous here than at entry 33 of owe-beauty-ugliness-appearance, which says a person without debt cannot be disgraced whatever else is true of them.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
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 about riches, destitution, debt and the uses and limits of money, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the ọmọlúàbí ideal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about telling the truth, the mechanics of lying and self-deception, and the value placed on a person whose word is reliable.
Forty-three Yorùbá proverbs on sùúrù, patience, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.