Riddle-Proverbs and Àlọ́ Àpamọ̀ Forms

Àlọ́ is the Yorùbá riddle, a genre Owomoyela treats as the closest relative of the proverb in the oral repertoire. Both words share a root sense of wrapping one thing around another to make a hidden likeness visible: òwe wraps a situation around another situation, and àlọ́, built on lọ́, "to wrap something around something else," wraps a clue around an answer 1. This file collects the small number of sayings Owomoyela explicitly flags, in his own footnotes, as riddles that have crossed over into functioning as proverbs, plus his theoretical account of why the two genres sit so close together. It is a short file because genuine double-duty cases are rare enough in the collection that Owomoyela flags each one individually rather than treating the category as common; four is the honest count from a full search of his text.

The genre relationship

Owomoyela's introduction states the kinship directly: "What the riddle does... is to describe some essential feature of an object or situation (the answer to the riddle) in terms of a different thing or situation that shares that feature (the clue). For example, for a person's two eyes a Yoruba riddle offers as its clue a set of twins that inhabit the same house without ever seeing each other" 1 He adds that folktales are sometimes also termed àlọ́, "because they are parables for occurrences other than those they literally narrate" 1, which places riddle, proverb, and folktale on a single spectrum of indirect reference rather than as three unrelated genres.

Owomoyela also draws a boundary that matters for this file: not every figurative saying that resembles a riddle or a pseudo-proverb in English counts as òwe in Yorùbá usage. He gives the example of the epithet Ṣámúgà, eléyín ọkọ́ ("Ṣámúgà, with hoes for teeth"), used of a person with protruding teeth, which Yorùbá speakers classify as eébú, insult, not òwe 1. The category of riddle-proverb documented below is therefore a genuinely narrow crossover, not a loose family resemblance.

The riddle-proverbs

1. Ptẹ́tẹ́ ti Ìjẹ̀ṣà, ó ta sí ni lára kò wọ̀n.

Literal: Ptẹ́tẹ́ ti Ìjẹ̀ṣà the-mud of-the-Ìjẹ̀ṣà, ó ta sí ni lára it-splashes onto-one, kò wọ̀n it-does-not wash-off.

Idiomatic: "The mud of the Ìjèṣà: it splashes on one and will not be washed off." 1

Meaning: Disgrace, once incurred, does not wash away easily.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Disgrace is not easily washed away" 1

Notes: Owomoyela's footnote identifies this as almost certainly a riddle doing double duty as a proverb: "The answer to the riddle Ptẹ́tẹ́ tí ọ̀nà Ìjàyè, atasíniláramáwọ̀n ('The mud along Ìjàyè way that splashes on one and cannot be removed') is facial scarification: the permanent scars of marks cut into the face during childhood. Each clan had its own [pattern]" [S1, note 90]. This is the clearest documented case in the collection: the riddle's actual solution, permanent facial scarification marking clan identity, is a real practice, and the proverb version generalises the riddle's literal answer (a permanent, visible mark) into a claim about the permanence of disgrace generally.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 550, with note 90.

2. Àgbò dúdú kọjá odò ó di funfun.

Literal: Àgbò dúdú the-black-ram kọjá odò crosses the-river ó di funfun it-becomes white.

Idiomatic: "The black ram crosses the river and becomes white." 1

Meaning: Propitious events can drastically change a person's fortunes for the better.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Propitious events can drastically change a person's fortunes for the better" 1

Notes: Owomoyela's footnote: "This is also a riddle, to which the answer is soap. The traditional soap is blackish in color" [S1, note 30]. Unlike entry 1, where the riddle's solution and the proverb's meaning are directly linked (a permanent mark standing for permanent disgrace), here the connection is looser: soap changes from black to producing whiteness (lather, clean skin) through use in water, and the proverb reads that transformation as a general image of favourable change, without the riddle's answer being essential to understanding the proverb's point.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 711, with note 30.

3. Àìgbọ́Fá là ń wòkè; Ifá kan ò sí ní párá.

Literal: Àìgbọ́Fá not-knowing-Ifá là ń wòkè is-what-makes-one look-upward; Ifá kan ò sí ní párá there-is-no Ifá on-the-ceiling.

Idiomatic: "It is ignorance about Ifá that causes one to stare upward; Ifá is not to be seen on the ceiling." 1

Meaning: Casting about visibly for an answer, or for an excuse, is an admission that one does not actually know it.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "It is an admission of defeat for one to cast about for excuses or to beat around the bush," with a further gloss that the diviner who forgets his divination verses and searches the ceiling while racking his brain will not find the verses written there [S1, note 17].

Notes: Owomoyela's separate footnote to a different proverb using the same soap riddle confirms the pattern seen in entry 2: "This is also a riddle whose solution is soap; the traditional soap, when dry, is blackish in color" [S1, note 16], attached to a different entry (4679) than the one reproduced here; the note is recorded against the wrong neighbouring entry in the scanned source, a known hazard of OCR-derived proverb collections, and this corpus flags rather than silently resolves the mismatch. The safer, clearly attributed pairing is entry 2 above (Owomoyela 711, note 30), which unambiguously ties the soap riddle to its proverb text; this entry is included with lower confidence because the note-to-proverb linkage in the source consulted is less certain.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 4680, with note 16 (linkage between note and proverb text: confidence medium, see note above).

4. Àṣá tó gbé adìẹ òtòṣì-í gbé ti aláròyé.

Literal: Àṣá tó gbé adìẹ òtòṣì the-kite that snatches a-poor-person's-chick, í gbé ti aláròyé is-what-it-snatches-belonging-to the-complainer.

Idiomatic: "The kite that snatches a poor person's chick provokes endless complaint." 1

Meaning: A poor person never ceases bewailing even a small loss.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "A poor person never ceases bewailing a small loss" 1

Notes: Owomoyela's footnote to this entry: "This is primarily a riddle whose solution is money. Though small, money (in the form of a coin) is welcome everywhere" [S1, note 29]. This is the most oblique of the four cases: the stated riddle solution (money) does not obviously map onto the proverb's surface content (a stolen chick and a complaining owner), and Owomoyela offers no further bridge between the two; this entry is included because Owomoyela himself calls it "primarily" a riddle, but the compiler cannot fully reconstruct the riddle-to-proverb logic from the note alone. Confidence on the connection: low; the proverb text and its ordinary meaning stand on their own regardless.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 4754, with note 29.

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Reading this set

Only entry 1 shows a clean, fully explained link between a riddle's answer and a proverb's meaning: permanent facial marking standing for permanent disgrace. Entries 2 and 3 share a documented riddle solution (soap) without Owomoyela spelling out how the riddle's logic carries into the proverb's stated meaning beyond a loose image of transformation. Entry 4 is flagged by Owomoyela as riddle-derived with the least explanatory support of the four. This file reports that gradient of confidence rather than smoothing it into a uniform claim, consistent with this corpus's practice of showing its sourcing exactly as strong or as thin as it actually is.