Eighteen Yorùbá proverbs on establishing what happened when accounts conflict, on the oath and the curse as instruments of proof, and on the tells that mark out the guilty party, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Òtítọ́, truth, is treated at length as a general virtue in owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity, and that ground is not repeated here. This file is narrower: it collects proverbs about what happens once an ọ̀rọ̀ has become an ẹjọ́, a dispute someone else must decide, and the parties' own words are no longer sufficient. Two mechanisms recur. One is the ìbúra, the oath, backed by èpè, a curse invoked to fall on the swearer if the claim is false, and by ẹ̀rí, a witness or third party whose corroboration is sought because the two accounts do not agree. The other is behavioral: several proverbs hold that guilt announces itself through conduct, in flight, in over-protestation, in an alibi too elaborate to be believed, whatever the oath eventually says.
The set does not present a tidy theory of evidence. Some proverbs treat the oath as reliably self-enforcing, since a false swearer answers to a curse or a god later. Others are frankly skeptical: an oath sworn on an unverifiable claim proves nothing, and a curse cursed in anger has no actual power over anyone. Both positions are given here as recorded, rather than reconciled.
The proverbs are given in Owomoyela's texts and translations unless another source is named. Owomoyela's parenthetical usage notes are the basis of the Used when lines; where the wording is his it is quoted.
Two proverbs on the gbárí oath, sworn by striking one's own head with a cudgel or an Ògún cult object to prove confidence in a claim, are already collected in owe-head-face-ori, entries 17 and 18 (Owomoyela's 1436 and 2020). They are not repeated here, though this file's Notes refer to them where relevant, since they belong to the same body of oath-taking proverbs as the ones below.
Literal: A kì í fi ohun one does-not with a-thing sọ́wọ́ in-the-hand búra swear-an-oath.
Idiomatic: "One does not hide something in one's hand and yet swear [that one knows nothing about it]."
Meaning: Swearing an oath while concealing the very thing the oath denies is not a clever evasion but an invitation to exposure.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is foolish to tempt fate; the dishonest person exposes himself or herself to the possibility of discovery"
Notes: The proverb assumes the oath is a real risk taken, not an empty formality, which is why swearing falsely while still holding the physical evidence is presented as a compounding of the original wrong rather than a way out of it.
Literal: Ìgbà ara the-body's-own time là ḿbúra is-when-we swear-oaths.
Idiomatic: "One swears when it is time to swear."
Meaning: An oath is a serious act reserved for its proper occasion, not a reflex available for any minor disagreement.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everything in its proper time"
Notes: The proverb is procedural rather than moral: it does not say oaths are dangerous or false oaths are punished, only that the oath belongs to a specific moment in a dispute and is devalued by overuse outside it.
Literal: Bí a bá ṣe ohun ńlá if one has-done a-great thing [offense], à fi èpè one uses a-curse [self-imprecation] gba ara ẹni là to-save one's-own-self.
Idiomatic: "If one has committed a great offense, one frees oneself by swearing [innocence]."
Meaning: The oath of self-imprecation, calling a curse down on oneself if one is lying, is the recognized way to answer a serious accusation.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's greatest duty is self-preservation"
Notes: Owomoyela's gloss treats this pragmatically rather than as an endorsement: it describes what people do to escape a grave charge, not whether the curse then does its work. Compare entries 12 and 13 below, which take opposite positions on whether a curse actually has force.
Literal: A ní ìrókò one says the-ìrókò-tree ni yó pa ọmọdé is-what will kill the-child, ó bojú-wẹ̀hìn he looks-behind; òòjọ́ ní ń jà? does-it happen the-same-day?
Idiomatic: "One curses a child that ìrókò will kill him, and he glances to his rear; does the curse take effect immediately?"
Meaning: A curse's delay is not proof that it has failed; the child who checks over his shoulder and finds nothing there has not been vindicated, only not yet punished.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The child obviously does not know that the fact that he does not die immediately in no way invalidates the curse" Owomoyela cross-references 1847.
Notes: The ìrókò tree recurs across this corpus as an avenger that answers an offense on its own schedule rather than at once; owe-head-face-ori entry 20 makes the identical point about the ìrókò's delayed reckoning with a different anecdote. Here the delay is specifically about a curse, which sharpens the proverb into a statement about how oath-magic is timed.
Literal: Èpè ìbínú an-angry curse ò pa odì does-not kill an-enemy.
Idiomatic: "An angry curse does not kill an enemy."
Meaning: A curse spoken out of pure anger, without ritual or legitimate grievance behind it, has no actual force.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One gets only psychological satisfaction from cursing one's enemy"
Notes: Read against entry 3 above, which treats a formal self-imprecation as a real stake, this proverb draws a line between the curse that functions as an oath within a recognized procedure and the curse that is merely an outburst; only the first is granted any power.
Literal: Èpè ìlasa the-curse of-okro-leaves kì í ja àgbọ̀nrín does-not affect the-deer.
Idiomatic: "The curses of okro leaves do not affect the deer."
Meaning: A curse cannot bind someone to stop doing what is simply in their nature to do.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot be at risk for what one cannot help doing"
Notes: Okro is the deer's favorite food, so the image is of the plant cursing its own predator to leave it alone, a curse defeated in advance by the relationship between the two parties. Owomoyela's footnote makes the logic explicit: since okro is what deer eat, any curse it lays on deer is void from the start.
Literal: Ogun ní ń ṣi ẹni mú war is-what mistakenly seizes one; èpè kì í ṣi ẹni jà a-curse does-not mistakenly afflict one.
Idiomatic: "A war might capture a person by mistake; a curse never affects one by mistake."
Meaning: Where war is indiscriminate, a curse is credited with precision: it finds only the party it was aimed at, or the party who is actually guilty.
Used when: Owomoyela's note, as printed, opens "More often than not one's misfortunes are the..." indicating the proverb argues that suffering under a curse is deserved rather than accidental .
Notes: This is the strongest affirmative claim in the set for the oath-curse as a reliable instrument, set directly against entries 5 and 6, which deny a curse's power under specific conditions. The contrast with war, chosen because war is proverbially the paradigm case of misfortune striking the wrong person, sharpens the claim: whatever else is arbitrary, the curse is not.
Literal: Ẹlẹ́rìí the-witness ní ń yanjú ẹjọ́ is-what settles a-case; ẹlẹ́rìí kì í ṣe elégbè the-witness is-not a-partisan.
Idiomatic: "It is a witness that clears up a case; a witness is not a partisan."
Meaning: The function that makes a witness useful, resolving a dispute, depends entirely on the witness having no stake in its outcome.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People called to bear witness in a case should be impartial"
Notes: The two clauses are stated as one fact rather than as a rule followed by its justification: a partisan witness has already stopped being, in the proverb's terms, a witness at all.
Literal: A kì í ṣe ẹlẹ́jọ́ one does-not do to-the-litigant ní "Ǹgbọ́?" [ask] "How-about-it?"
Idiomatic: "One does not ask the main litigant, 'How about it?'"
Meaning: Soliciting an interested party's own account as though it settled anything is a procedural error, not a shortcut.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Do not expect impartial witnessing from an interested party"
Notes: Read beside entry 8, this proverb supplies the negative case: the ẹlẹ́jọ́, the litigant with a stake in the outcome, is named as precisely the person whose testimony the ẹlẹ́rìí proverb excludes from counting as a witness.
Literal: Àbẹ̀tẹ́lẹ̀ a-bribe ní ń fọ́jú is-what blinds onídàájọ́ the-judge.
Idiomatic: "It is bribery that blinds a judge."
Meaning: Corruption is described as a sensory failure in the judge himself, not a separate wrong alongside his judgment.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Bribery beclouds judgment"
Notes: The verb fọ́jú, to blind, is the same image this corpus uses elsewhere for literal blindness (see owe-eyes-seeing-blindness), and applying it to a bribed judge treats corrupted judgment as a disability rather than a choice, softening the accusation by making it a condition rather than a character flaw.
Literal: A kì í ró aṣọ ajé sídìí one does-not wear the-ajé-cloth around-the-waist ká dájọ́ òdodo lébi 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: Taking on the role of ordeal-judge is itself a sworn commitment, and using that office to convict someone innocent is a violation of the oath the office requires.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must not violate the oath one is sworn to observe"
Notes: Trial by ordeal, in which the accused's guilt or innocence is determined by an appointed ritual specialist wearing prescribed dress, is treated here as a procedure with its own binding oath separate from the outcome it produces; the proverb's target is the officiant's integrity, not the ordeal's reliability as a method.
Literal: Bí ẹjọ́ ò sunwọ̀n if a-case is-not good [is-hopeless], ẹlẹ́jọ́ là ń fún dá the-litigant is-who is-given [to] judge.
Idiomatic: "If a case is hopeless, one asks the owner to judge it."
Meaning: When guilt is already beyond dispute, the formal machinery of an impartial judgment can be dispensed with, and the guilty party is simply told to pronounce on their own case.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If guilt is obvious, the guilty should be made to declare it"
Notes: This is a pointed exception to entry 9's rule against letting an interested party judge their own matter: here the exception is licensed precisely because the outcome is no longer genuinely contested, so soliciting the guilty party's own verdict becomes a form of forcing an admission rather than a lapse in procedure.
Literal: Ìmùlẹ̀ those-bound-by-covenant ò gbọdọ̀ tan ara wọn jẹ must-not deceive one-another; ìmọ̀ ẹnìkan ò yàn the-knowledge of-one-person is-not enough.
Idiomatic: "Those who enter into a covenant must not betray one another; one person's counsel is not enough by itself."
Meaning: A sworn covenant between parties carries an obligation of mutual honesty that a single person's private judgment cannot discharge alone.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must not break covenants"
Notes: Ìmùlẹ̀, the covenant or blood-pact, is a distinct institution from the individual oath-of-denial seen in entries 1 and 3; this proverb is the file's one entry on a mutual, bilateral sworn bond rather than a unilateral claim to be verified.
Literal: Ilé-ni-mo-wà I-was-in-my-home kì í jẹ̀bi ẹjọ́ is-never found-guilty of-a-case.
Idiomatic: "'I-was-in-my-home' is never the guilty party in a dispute."
Meaning: An alibi of simply having stayed home is, definitionally, unimpeachable; a person who can truthfully say this was never at the scene cannot be convicted of what happened there.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One does not get into trouble by minding one's own business"
Notes: The compressed nominal Ilé-ni-mo-wà is treated as a legal party in its own right, almost a defendant's plea personified, which is a construction this corpus meets elsewhere in proverbs that turn a phrase into an agent (compare owe-iwa-character entry 37, À-rí-fíni-lé).
Literal: Ẹni tí ó sá the-one who flees là ń lé is-who-is chased.
Idiomatic: "People chase only those who flee."
Meaning: Flight itself is read as an admission; a person who stands their ground is not pursued in the first place.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Those who act as though they are guilty are presumed to be guilty"
Notes: The proverb is a piece of practical psychology about how suspicion is actually allocated in a dispute, prior to and independent of any oath or witness: behavior itself supplies evidence, for better or worse, before the formal proceeding begins.
Literal: Ta ló dè ọ́ who has-tied you-down tí ò ń kakọ? that you are-writhing?
Idiomatic: "Who has tied you down and thus forced you to confess your guilt?"
Meaning: Excessive, unprompted protest is read as self-incrimination; no one has compelled this confession except the speaker's own guilty conscience.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said to stop the mouths of people who protest too much as a result of a guilty conscience"
Notes: Kakọ, to writhe or struggle as though physically bound, gives the image of a person twisting under a restraint that, the proverb points out, does not actually exist; the only thing constraining the speaker is what they themselves know.
Literal: They said, "Àwòko [Mockingbird], you insulted the-king." He said, "When did I have-opportunity to-insult the-king, before I sing two-hundred [songs] in-the-morning, two-hundred in-the-afternoon, two-hundred at-night, before I mix-in extra improvised-verses?"
Idiomatic: "They said, 'Mockingbird, you are accused of insulting the king.' It asked, when would it have time to insult the king, seeing that it must sing two hundred songs in the morning, two hundred in the afternoon, and two hundred at night, mixing it all up with some frolicsome notes?"
Meaning: The accused answers a direct charge with an elaborate, irrelevant demonstration of how busy and blameless their ordinary conduct is, rather than with a direct denial.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person in trouble will resort to ludicrous alibis to escape punishment" Owomoyela cross-references 2396.
Notes: The mockingbird's defense never actually denies the accusation; it substitutes an unrelated catalogue of its own industriousness, which is precisely the rhetorical move the proverb is naming and mocking. Compare entry 16, where over-elaboration is read the same way, as a tell rather than a defense.
Literal: Ìmàlé gbààwẹ̀ the-Muslim keeps-fast ó lóun ò gbé tọ́ mì he says he did-not even swallow saliva; ta ní ń ṣe ẹlẹ́rìí fún un? who is-who serves-as-witness for-him?
Idiomatic: "The Muslim fasts and swears he did not swallow his saliva; who is to corroborate his story?"
Meaning: A claim about a private, unwitnessable act cannot be checked, and asserting it with confidence proves nothing about whether it is true.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is no point in paying attention to a claim that cannot be verified"
Notes: This proverb is the file's clearest statement of skepticism about unverifiable self-report, placed deliberately beside entries that treat the oath or the curse as reliable: Owomoyela's collection carries a companion proverb at entry 2532, Ìmàlé sọ̀rọ̀ òjò kù, ó ní Ọlọ́run-ún jẹ́rìí òun ("the Muslim says something and thunder rumbles; he says the Almighty is corroborating his statement," used of a person who claims a coincidental, neutral event as proof of their own position), which makes the identical point about false appeals to divine witness. Owomoyela prints a close variant of that companion proverb again at entry 3486. Neither is repeated here in full since the point duplicates this entry's; both are recorded in this note for completeness.
The corpus holds two incompatible positions on whether an oath or a curse actually works, and does not choose between them. Entries 5 and 6 deny that a curse has any force outside its proper conditions; entry 7 asserts flatly that a curse, unlike war, never strikes the wrong person. A collection built only from one side would misrepresent the record; both are attested and both are given here.
Guilt is read off conduct as often as it is established by oath. Entries 15, 16, and 17 all treat behavior itself, flight, over-protest, an elaborate irrelevant alibi, as evidence prior to and independent of any formal proceeding. This is a pragmatic, observational strand running alongside the more ritual material on oaths and covenants, and the two strands are not presented as competing methods so much as complementary forms of the same social skill: reading a dispute correctly.
Skepticism about unverifiable claims is explicit, not merely implied. Entry 18 states outright that a claim no one can check settles nothing, which sits in real tension with entries 3 and 4, where an unwitnessed self-imprecation is treated as a meaningful stake. The corpus contains both the confidence that oaths bind and the suspicion that they can be safely sworn precisely because no one is watching.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, 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.
Thirty-four Yorùbá proverbs on bearing witness, swearing an oath, the difference between what you saw and what you were told, and what happens to the person who swears falsely, 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.
Forty-three Yorùbá proverbs on sùúrù, patience, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Fifty-five Yorùbá proverbs on pride, arrogance, humility, and the limits of what a person can know about themselves, each given with the original, a literal gloss, and a named translation.