Twelve Yorùbá proverbs on jìnnà (distance) and súnmọ́ (closeness), showing a consistent Yorùbá argument that value and danger both travel with distance, closeness breeding contempt and remoteness breeding esteem or risk.
Jìnnà is far or distant, and its opposite, closeness, is expressed through súnmọ́ or through simple proximity vocabulary rather than one fixed antonym. This file collects twelve proverbs built on that axis, distance and nearness, both as literal physical fact (keeping one's distance from a snake, a farm sited near or far from town) and as social measure (the estranged relative valued more than the close one, the danger that is never far away). A single claim recurs across the set with unusual consistency: nearness diminishes and distance elevates, whether the object in question is a person, a relative, or a threat.
Literal: Ibi tí òjò-ó ti ń pa igún bọ̀ the-place where-the-rain has-been-drenching the-vulture-that-is-coming jìnnà is-far; ta ní rán igún níṣẹ́? who sent-the-vulture on-an-errand?
Idiomatic: "The vulture has endured the drenching rain from a great distance, but who sent the vulture on an errand?"
Meaning: A hardship endured over a long distance is no one's fault but the traveller's own, since no one compelled the journey.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "If one's choices land one in difficulty, one should not blame others"
Notes: The distance travelled is what accumulates the suffering in this proverb, and the argument turns entirely on that accumulation being self-chosen rather than imposed.
Source: Owomoyela 998.
Literal: Ẹni tí ó jìn sí kòtò whoever falls into-a-ditch kọ́ ará ìyókù lẹ́gbọ́n teaches the-rest a-lesson.
Idiomatic: "The person who falls into a ditch teaches others a lesson."
Meaning: Others learn from a single person's misfortune, at that person's expense.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One learns from the experiences of those who have gone before"
Notes: Jìn here means to fall deep into rather than to be distant, a related but distinct sense of the same root; the ditch's depth stands in for the severity of the fall rather than for horizontal distance, and the proverb is included for the shared vocabulary and the family resemblance in argument, misfortune measured by degree.
Source: Owomoyela 1530.
Literal: Kí á jìnnà séjò tí a ò bẹ́ lórí let-us stand-far from-a-snake that has-not-been beheaded; ikú tí yó pani a jìnnà síni the-death that would-kill-one keeps-its-distance from-one.
Idiomatic: "One should stand far back from a snake that has not been beheaded; the death that would kill deserves a wide berth."
Meaning: Recognised danger should be met with deliberate physical distance, not proximity or bravado.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One should recognize dangerous situations and keep away from them"
Notes: This is the clearest prescriptive use of jìnnà in the file: distance is recommended as the correct response to danger, not merely observed as a fact about the world.
Source: Owomoyela 1650.
Literal: Kí á lé akátá jìnnà let-us chase the-jackal far ká tó bá adìẹ wí before we reprimand the-chicken.
Idiomatic: "One should first chase the jackal away before reprimanding the chicken."
Meaning: Remove the immediate danger to a safe distance before turning to lesser corrective business.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Get rid of the immediate danger before reprimanding those who caused it"
Notes: This proverb pairs directly with entry 3: both treat putting distance between oneself and a threat as the necessary first action, prior to any other business, including justified correction.
Source: Owomoyela 1651.
Literal: Àsúnmọ́ dẹ́tẹ closeness breeds-contempt; èèyàn gbókèèrè níyì the-person-who-lives-afar has-worth.
Idiomatic: "Closeness breeds contempt; the person who lives afar is made much of."
Meaning: Familiarity through proximity diminishes a person's standing, while distance enhances it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "To be close by is to be unappreciated; to be far away is to be valued," with a note that the two following entries in the collection are variants on the same theme .
Notes: This is the file's central, most explicit statement of the near/far value axis that runs through the whole set, and it is the direct proverbial ancestor of entries 6 through 8, all of which restate the same claim from different angles.
Source: Owomoyela 4747.
Literal: Ẹni a bí wọ́n bí kì í wù wọ́n those-they-were-born-with do-not please-them; ẹni ẹlẹ́ni ní ń yá wọ́n lára it-is-strangers who excite-them.
Idiomatic: "Their blood relatives never find favor with them; only strangers evoke their enthusiasm."
Meaning: People consistently prize what is remote or unfamiliar above what is near and known, even their own blood kin.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "People always appreciate what is remote more than what is near at hand"
Notes: This proverb applies the closeness-breeds-contempt logic of entry 5 to the sharpest possible case, blood relatives passed over in favour of strangers, and it belongs with 10-owe-family-lineage-compound.md as much as with this file, since its content is squarely about kinship even though its argument is about distance.
Source: Owomoyela 3075.
Literal: Ọ̀rẹ́ kítíkítí the-closest of-friends, ìyekan kàtàkàtà the-most-distant of-relatives: bí ọ̀rẹ́ kítíkítí bá kú if-the-closest-friend dies, ìyekan kàtàkàtà ní ń gbé e sin the-most-distant-relatives are-who bury him.
Idiomatic: "The closest of friends, the most distant of relatives: when the closest friend dies, the most distant relatives are the ones who arrange the funeral."
Meaning: However close a friendship, blood ties, even remote ones, take precedence at the moment that matters most.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "The closest friend is not as important as even distant relatives"
Notes: This proverb complicates entry 6's claim rather than simply repeating it: here distant kin, not strangers, are shown outranking even the nearest friend, so the file's near/far logic operates differently depending on whether the comparison is kin-versus-stranger or kin-versus-friend.
Source: Owomoyela 3145.
Literal: Bí ẹni ẹní bá kú lókèèrè if one's-relative dies far-away, à pẹ̀ta-a rẹ̀ wálé one sends his-relic home.
Idiomatic: "If one's relative dies far away from home, the dead person's relic is sent home."
Meaning: However far a person wanders in life, something of that person is expected to return home in the end.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "However far a person wanders, something of that person must eventually return home"
Notes: This proverb documents a specific mortuary custom, the sending home of a relic or token when death occurs at a distance, and it treats distance not as a permanent separation but as something a final act of return partially undoes; compare the fuller treatment of death and its customs at file 75.
Source: Owomoyela 3172.
Literal: Ìwọ̀sí lọkọ etílé insults are-the-lot-of the-farm-near-the-town; ìyà lọkọ ẹ̀gàn ń jẹ neglect afflicts-the-farm-far-in-the-wilds.
Idiomatic: "A farm hard by the town brings insults; a farm far away in the wilds suffers neglect."
Meaning: Every degree of distance carries its own characteristic drawback; there is no location, near or far, without a cost.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Every pursuit has its drawbacks"
Notes: This proverb refuses the simpler binary running through entries 5 through 7 (that far is better than near, or vice versa); it states instead that both extremes carry distinct penalties, which this corpus records as the tradition's own qualification of its more sweeping "closeness breeds contempt" claim.
Source: Owomoyela 5095.
Literal: Ayé jìn, kò lópin the-world is-vast, it-has-no end; ibi tí ẹsẹ̀ ò dé lógún ọdún ò ló-kà the-places feet do-not-reach in-twenty years are-uncountable.
Idiomatic: "The world is so vast that there is no end to it; the places a person's feet cannot reach in twenty years are uncountable."
Meaning: No one, however well travelled, can claim to have exhausted or fully known the world's extent.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "No one can claim to know all there is of the world"
Notes: This proverb uses distance at the largest possible scale, the whole world, as a check against any claim to total knowledge or experience, distinct from the file's other proverbs, which measure distance at the scale of a single journey, farm, or relationship.
Source: Owomoyela 4826.
Literal: "Báríkà" lónìí "congratulations-on-surviving-a-disaster" today; "Báríkà" lọ̀la the-same tomorrow; "Ẹ kú ìrọ̀jú" ò jìnnà síbẹ̀ "accept-my-condolences" is-not far from-there.
Idiomatic: "'Congratulations on surviving a disaster' today; 'Congratulations on surviving a disaster' the next day; 'Accept my condolences' is not far away."
Meaning: A string of narrow escapes tends, before long, to end in an actual catastrophe.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Persistent close shaves sooner or later become real disasters"
Notes: Here distance is used temporally rather than spatially, marking the closeness of an anticipated bad outcome, the same underlying vocabulary of jìnnà applied to time rather than to physical space or relationship, showing the term's range across this file.
Source: Owomoyela 4848.
Literal: Kòsíkan "there-is-no-problem" òun ǹkan and "a-problem" ní ń jọ ń rìn travel together.
Idiomatic: "'There-is-no-problem' always travels in the company of 'problem.'"
Meaning: Even in the apparent absence of trouble, trouble is never genuinely distant.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Even when there is no problem, problems are never far away"
Notes: This closing proverb states the file's underlying suspicion of comfortable distance directly: apparent safety and actual danger are described as travelling companions rather than as opposites separated by any real distance at all.
Source: Owomoyela 5128.
Distance and value move together, but not in a single fixed direction. Entry 5 states the dominant pattern, nearness breeds contempt, plainly, and entries 6 and 7 apply it to kin and friendship with different results depending on the comparison. Entry 9 then qualifies the whole pattern by insisting every distance, near or far, carries its own cost, which this corpus reports as the tradition correcting its own generalisation rather than as an inconsistency to smooth away.
Physical distance and danger are treated as genuinely separable by deliberate action. Entries 3 and 4 both counsel actively creating distance from a recognised threat, which is the file's clearest prescriptive use of the near/far vocabulary, distinct from the more descriptive or evaluative uses elsewhere in the set.
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