Twenty-six Yorùbá proverbs on mortality, ìkú (death), and ọ̀run (the beyond), drawn from Owomoyela's dedicated section on the subject, showing how ordinary speech treats death as certain, undodgeable, and impartial.
Owomoyela's collection gives mortality its own dedicated section, "On mortality," pages 388-393, twenty-six proverbs long, and this file reproduces it in full . Ikú, death, and ọ̀run, the beyond or heaven, are the two terms that organise the set: death as an event no sacrifice, medicine, or social standing can defer once it has been called, and ọ̀run as a destination everyone reaches and no one returns from. The proverbs are used, per Owomoyela's usage notes, mostly as consolation, as warning against complacency, and as arguments for accepting what cannot be changed; none functions as instruction in funeral rite or ancestor veneration, which are documented separately at 06-orisa/24-ancestors-and-the-dead.md .
Literal: A kì í pẹ́ láyé one does-not live-long on-earth ká má fi ilẹ̀ bora and not with earth cover-oneself.
Idiomatic: "One does not live so long on this earth that one does not eventually cover oneself with earth."
Meaning: Everybody dies in the end, however long the life.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Everybody dies in the end"
Notes: Fi ilẹ̀ bora, to cover oneself with earth, is a euphemism for burial that turns the grave into an act the deceased performs rather than one done to them, a grammatical softening this file's other entries repeat in different forms.
Source: Owomoyela 3979.
Literal: A kì í sunkún one does-not weep-for a-nìkàn-para-ẹ̀ one-who-took-his-own-life.
Idiomatic: "One does not weep for a person who took his or her own life."
Meaning: Suicide forfeits the ordinary claim to mourning.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Do not pity anyone who invites disaster on his or her own head"
Notes: The proverb is harsh by design, denying the sympathy ordinarily due the dead, and it should be read as documented attitude, not endorsed by this corpus as counsel.
Source: Owomoyela 3980.
Literal: Àgbà kì í ṣubú yẹgẹ an-elder does-not stumble suddenly kó da ti ikùn-un rẹ̀ síle and spill what-is-in his-stomach; ohun a bá jẹ ní ḿbá ni lọ what-one-has-eaten is-what accompanies-one [to the grave].
Idiomatic: "An elderly person does not stumble and spill what is in his stomach; what one has eaten goes with one."
Meaning: What one has consumed and enjoyed in life is the only thing that genuinely belongs to a person at death.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "All that one will take to heaven is what one has eaten on this earth," glossed further as counsel to enjoy life while one has the chance [S1, note 1].
Notes: This is one of a small group of proverbs in the set (compare entry 4) that use eaten food as a figure for the only durable possession, arguing implicitly against hoarding wealth that cannot be carried past death.
Source: Owomoyela 3981, with note 1.
Literal: Àìdé ikú it-is-when-death-has-not-come là ḿbọ Ògún that-one sacrifices-to-Ògún; àìdé ikú là ḿbọ òrìṣà it-is-when-death-has-not-come that-one sacrifices-to-gods; bíkú bá dé ikú ò gbọ́ bọ when death comes, death does-not heed sacrifice.
Idiomatic: "It is when death has not called that one sacrifices to Ògún; it is when death has not called that one sacrifices to gods; when death comes calling, death does not heed sacrifices."
Meaning: Sacrifice is preventive, not curative; once death has actually arrived, no offering will reverse it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "There is no medicine or sacrifice to stop death when its time comes" Owomoyela cross-references entry 3492, a proverb using the same logic with charms tied around the neck instead of sacrifice.
Notes: This proverb states plainly the limit on ẹbọ that file 74 documents at length; here the limit is death specifically, framed as the one circumstance no sacrificial system, to Ògún or to any òrìṣà, can address once it has arrived.
Source: Owomoyela 3982.
Literal: Àìsàn kan one illness ò lè kó ọgbọ̀n ikú lọ cannot carry-away thirty deaths.
Idiomatic: "One illness cannot bear thirty deaths away."
Meaning: One person's sickness or death does not exempt others from the same fate.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One person's illness or death will not indemnify others against death"
Notes: The image of an illness "carrying away" a fixed quota of deaths treats mortality almost as a resource that could, absurdly, be exhausted by one case, which the proverb denies.
Source: Owomoyela 3983.
Literal: Ajá kú the-dog dies ó fi eegun sílé ayé it-leaves bones on-earth; adìẹ funfun-ún kú the-white-chicken dies ó tú ìhùùhù gbugbu it-loses its-down entirely; ìgbín kú ó gbàgbé ìkàràun the-snail dies and-forgets its-shell.
Idiomatic: "The dog dies and leaves bones on earth; the white chicken dies and loses its down; the snail dies and forgets about its shell."
Meaning: Nothing physical, however integral to a creature in life, travels with it beyond death.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One cannot take anything with one to heaven"
Notes: Three creatures, three kinds of bodily covering, bone, down, shell, are listed to make the claim exhaustive rather than anecdotal; the structure is the same accumulative technique used elsewhere in the proverb corpus to universalise a single observation.
Source: Owomoyela 3984.
Literal: Ajogún-Ifá the-inheritor-of-the-Ifá-priesthood ní kí òun má kù-ú prays that-he not die; ẹni tó kọ́ọ́ tẹ́lẹ̀ dà? where-is the-one-who taught-him before?
Idiomatic: "He who inherited the Ifá priesthood prays that he not die; where is his predecessor as priest?"
Meaning: Every practitioner, however protected by knowledge or office, eventually dies, as the fate of every predecessor shows.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everyone dies, willy-nilly"
Notes: This proverb pairs directly with file 72's material on the babaláwo: even a person trained in the system that manages exchange with the unseen has no special exemption from death, and the proverb makes the point by pointing to the empirically obvious fact of the teacher's own death.
Source: Owomoyela 3985.
Literal: Bí a bá dàgbà, tí a gbó if one grows-up and grows-old, bó pẹ́ títí ojú á ká ìjọ in-time one's-eyes will-encompass everyone.
Idiomatic: "If one lives long and grows old, in time one's eyes will encompass all."
Meaning: Long life brings the experience of seeing everyone else pass through their fortunes, good and bad.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Age is experience"
Notes: Placed among the mortality proverbs, this one is comparatively gentle, treating longevity as a vantage point on others' lives rather than dwelling on the elder's own approaching death.
Source: Owomoyela 3993.
Literal: Bí a bá forí sọ́lẹ̀ tí a kò kú if one dives-headfirst to-the-ground and does-not die, ohun tí a ó ṣe-é kù there-remains something one-is-yet-to-do.
Idiomatic: "If one dives headfirst onto the ground and does not die, one must still have things to accomplish in life."
Meaning: Surviving a suicide attempt is read as evidence that providence has unfinished business for the survivor.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Providence has plans for one who fails in a suicide attempt"
Notes: Read against entry 2, which denies mourning to a successful suicide, this proverb takes the opposite case, a failed attempt, and reframes the survival itself as purposeful rather than merely lucky.
Source: Owomoyela 3994.
Literal: Bí ikú bá dé when death comes, kò sí lóyà there-is-no lawyer tó lè ṣojú ẹni who-can represent-one.
Idiomatic: "When death comes, no lawyer can represent us."
Meaning: No advocate or intermediary can argue on one's behalf against death.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "We cannot hide from death behind well-wishers"
Notes: Lóyà, lawyer, is a loanword-based term reflecting the colonial and post-colonial court system, marking this as a comparatively modern formulation of an old theme, death's total imperviousness to appeal, expressed through a contemporary institutional image.
Source: Owomoyela 3995.
Literal: Ẹbọ-ọ́ le the-sacrifice is-formidable/demanding, kò ju òkú lọ it-does-not exceed a-corpse.
Idiomatic: "The sacrifice is formidable; it is not worse than death."
Meaning: However demanding an offering or ritual obligation is, it is still preferable to death.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No suffering extends beyond death" Owomoyela's footnote records an alternative construal: that no protective sacrifice can be more efficacious than the protection the dead can offer, in keeping with the belief that departed ancestors vigilantly protect those they have left behind [S1, note 2].
Notes: Owomoyela's two readings are worth keeping both, since they point in different directions, one about the relative severity of sacrifice versus death, the other about ancestral protection outperforming any sacrifice. The second reading connects this proverb directly to ancestor veneration, documented in 06-orisa/24-ancestors-and-the-dead.md.
Source: Owomoyela 3996, with note 2.
Literal: Ẹní fẹ́ rí òkú whoever wants to-see the-dead kó sùn should sleep; àtúnrarí dojú àlá seeing-them-again happens-only-in the-realm-of-dream.
Idiomatic: "Whoever wants to see the dead should go to sleep; such encounters happen only in the realm of dreams."
Meaning: The dead are seen again only in dream, never in ordinary waking life.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Once people die, they cannot be seen again in this life"
Notes: This proverb locates the only sanctioned channel for encountering the dead in dream specifically, distinguishing it clearly from any claim of waking visitation, a distinction worth preserving given how often popular retellings blur it.
Source: Owomoyela 3997.
Literal: Ẹni tó kú the-one-who died àti ẹni tó sọnù and the-one-who is-lost: wọ́n lè pàdé they can meet.
Idiomatic: "The dead person and the lost person: both could meet."
Meaning: A person permanently lost to their community, through exile or estrangement, is functionally equivalent to a dead person.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "A person lost to his community is no different from a dead person"
Notes: This proverb extends "death" beyond biological death to social death, being lost to one's people, and treats the two categories as capable of meeting on the same footing, which is a distinctively Yorùbá reading of exile that Western frameworks tend to keep strictly separate from mortality.
Source: Owomoyela 3998.
Literal: Ẹni tó ń sùn-ún the-one who is-sleeping sàn ju ẹni tó kú lọ is-better-off than the-one who died.
Idiomatic: "The sleeping person is better off than the dead person."
Meaning: States that look superficially similar, sleep and death, are in fact very different, and the distinction matters.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Conditions that superficially seem the same may in fact be very different; sleep is preferable to death"
Notes: This proverb pushes back gently against the family of sleep-death metaphors used elsewhere (entries 1, 9, 12 all use sleep-adjacent language for death); it insists the two remain distinguishable and ranked.
Source: Owomoyela 3999.
Literal: Ẹrú kú a-slave dies, ìyá ò gbọ́ the-mother does-not hear-of-it; ọmọ kú ariwó ta a-freeborn-child dies, lamentation erupts.
Idiomatic: "A slave dies, and the mother does not learn of the death; a freeborn dies, and lamentations erupt."
Meaning: Death is met with unequal social recognition depending on the status of the dead.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "People are not all equal, nor are they valued equally"
Notes: This proverb documents historical social stratification, specifically the institution of slavery within Yorùbá society, without endorsing it, and the corpus's practice elsewhere of distinguishing what the tradition records from what it approves applies fully here: this is a description of an inequality, not a defense of it.
Source: Owomoyela 4000.
Literal: Ẹṣin ta ta ta ó kú a-horse kicks kicks kicks and dies; èèyán rìn rìn rìn ó sọnù a-person walks walks walks and is-lost.
Idiomatic: "A horse kicks and kicks and kicks and dies; a person walks and walks and walks and gets lost."
Meaning: Both animal and human strive without pause until an end, kicking or walking, that overtakes them regardless.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "The fate of humans, as of animals, is to keep striving until death"
Notes: The reduplicated verbs (ta ta ta, rìn rìn rìn) enact the ceaseless activity the proverb describes, a formal device this corpus notes elsewhere (compare owe-iwa-character entry 43) as a common way Yorùbá proverbs encode duration or intensity directly in their grammar.
Source: Owomoyela 4001.
Literal: Gbèsè nikú debt is-death; kò sẹ́ni tí kò níí pa there-is-no-one it-will-not kill.
Idiomatic: "Death is a debt; there is no one it will not kill."
Meaning: Death is universally owed and universally collected.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Death is a debt everyone owes and everyone must repay"
Notes: Framing death as debt rather than as event or agent is a distinct rhetorical choice; it makes death's arrival a matter of obligation already incurred rather than a contingency, closing off any expectation of exemption.
Source: Owomoyela 4002.
Literal: Ìbí ò ju ìbí one birth does-not exceed another birth; bí a ti bí ẹrú as one bore a-slave la ti bí ọmọ so-was-one bore a-scion.
Idiomatic: "No birth is worthier than another; just as the slave was born, so was the scion born."
Meaning: All human beings enter life on the same terms, regardless of the social status they are born into.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "All humans start out equal"
Notes: Set beside entry 15, which documents unequal treatment at death, this proverb asserts equality at birth, and the two together show the proverb corpus recording both the ideal (equal at birth) and the documented practice (unequal in death and mourning) without reconciling them.
Source: Owomoyela 4003.
Literal: Ikán ń jẹlé termites are-eating the-house, àgbà ń sọ̀ the-elder complains; àgbà náà oúnjẹ ikán the-elder himself is-food for-termites.
Idiomatic: "Termites eat up the house, and the old person complains; but the old man or woman himself or herself is food for termites."
Meaning: The complainer is subject to the very process he complains of; there is no standing outside it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "If a certain fate awaits one, one should not make futile efforts to protect others from it"
Notes: The proverb collapses the distance between observer and observed: the elder worried about termites eating the house will himself be eaten, in death, by the same insects, a grim symmetry that is the proverb's entire point.
Source: Owomoyela 4006.
Literal: Ikú death lorúkọ àjẹ́pọ̀kun is-the-name one-bears at-the-final-reckoning.
Idiomatic: "Death is the name one bears at the last."
Meaning: Death is everyone's ultimate designation, however many other names or titles a person accumulated in life.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Death is everybody's ultimate fate"
Notes: Yorùbá naming practice is rich and cumulative across a lifetime (praise names, title names, circumstantial names); this proverb states that all such accumulation ends in one shared, final name.
Source: Owomoyela 4007.
Literal: Ikú tí ń pa ojúgbà ẹni the-death that is-killing one's-age-mate ń pòwe fúnni is-speaking-in-proverb to-one.
Idiomatic: "The death that kills one's age mate is sending one a message in proverbs."
Meaning: A death within one's own generation is a coded warning about one's own mortality.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One should learn from others' fate" Owomoyela cross-references entry 4010, in which the death of the black monkey similarly "sends a proverbial message" to the colobus monkey, meaning that what happened to someone in a comparable position may well happen to oneself .
Notes: This proverb is one of the few in the collection to describe death itself as a communicative act, "speaking in proverbs," which draws an explicit line between the proverb genre this whole corpus section documents and the interpretive work death demands of the living.
Source: Owomoyela 4009; compare 4010.
Literal: Ilẹ̀ ayé this-world à-fọwọ́-bà-fi-sílẹ̀ [is] a-thing-to-be-touched-momentarily-and-then-let-go.
Idiomatic: "This world is something to be handled momentarily and then let go of."
Meaning: Earthly life is temporary tenure, not permanent possession.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "All life is ephemeral"
Notes: The compressed nominal construction, a single hyphenated phrase standing for a whole clause, is the same grammatical pattern discussed in owe-iwa-character entry 33, here applied to the whole of earthly existence rather than to a particular failure of upbringing.
Source: Owomoyela 4012.
Literal: Ọjọ́ a bá kú the-day one dies, aṣọ ní ḿbani lọ cloth is-what accompanies-one.
Idiomatic: "On the day one dies, only cloth accompanies one."
Meaning: Of all one's possessions, only the burial cloth actually goes with the body; jewelry and other valuables do not.
Used when: Part of the longer proverb: "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," with the note "When we die, our jewelry is of no use to us"
Notes: This proverb gives specific, practical content to the general claim made in entry 6 (nothing physical travels beyond death); it makes one narrow exception, burial cloth, and explains it by contrast with brass and beads, valuables that stay behind.
Source: Owomoyela 4024.
Literal: Ọjọ́ a bá kú the-day one dies là ń dẹ̀rẹ̀ is-when-one becomes-an-idol/is-esteemed, èèyàn ò sunwọ̀n láàyè a-person is-not-appreciated while-alive.
Idiomatic: "It is on the day one dies that one becomes an idol; no one is appreciated when alive."
Meaning: Recognition and esteem often arrive only after death, too late to benefit the person who earned them.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "People are often more glorious in death than in life"
Notes: This is a proverb of quiet protest against the pattern it describes rather than an endorsement of it; it is regularly cited in contemporary Yorùbá commentary on posthumous honour as a critique of neglecting the living.
Source: Owomoyela 4025. Also attested at .
Literal: Ọ̀run ò dùn heaven/the-beyond may-not-be-sweet, ẹni tó kú ò padà wáyé one-who has-died does-not return to-earth.
Idiomatic: "Heaven may turn out not to be a pleasant place, but the dead cannot come back to earth."
Meaning: Whatever the beyond turns out to be, the passage into it is irreversible.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Once one is dead, one is done"
Notes: This proverb withholds any promise about ọ̀run's pleasantness, which distinguishes it from consolatory religious language proper; its force is entirely in the irreversibility clause, not in any claim about what awaits.
Source: Owomoyela 4026.
Literal: Tikú tikú with-death with-death là ń ro àgbà is-how-one regards the-elder; àgbà ní ń pète àìkú the-elder is-who plots not-dying.
Idiomatic: "People always look at aged people with death in their eyes; the aged are the ones who strive to stay alive."
Meaning: Others regard the elderly as death's likely next target, while the elders themselves are precisely the ones most actively working to postpone it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Each person is the most reliable guardian of his or her own well-being"
Notes: The proverb notes an asymmetry between outside perception (the elder marked for death) and the elder's own experience (actively resisting it), which closes the set on a note about self-preservation as agency rather than passive fatalism.
Source: Owomoyela 4028.
This is the full run of Owomoyela's dedicated mortality section, and three things stand out across it. Death is repeatedly named indirectly through euphemism (entries 1, 3, 9, 20), a pattern consistent with the broader Yorùbá avoidance of naming death and misfortune directly that this corpus notes elsewhere. The set records social inequality in how death is met (entries 15, 24) without endorsing it, alongside a countervailing claim of equality at birth (entry 18); the corpus preserves this tension rather than resolving it. Ancestral protection is only glancingly present (entry 11's second reading), which means the fuller treatment of what happens after death and how the dead relate to the living belongs to 06-orisa/24-ancestors-and-the-dead.md rather than to this proverb file: these twenty-six proverbs are about the fact and manner of dying, not about the ancestors' ongoing role among the living.
06-orisa/24-ancestors-and-the-dead.md and 04-cosmology/01-orun-and-aye.md, for the doctrinal account of the beyond and ancestor veneration against which these proverbs' assumptions can be checked.Yoruba burial and funerary practice, the good death and the bad death, the ancestor as continuing presence, atunwa and rebirth, and how all of this actually works in Christian and Muslim Yoruba families today.
Thirteen Yorùbá proverbs about ẹbọ, sacrifice and offering, showing how ordinary speech treats the exchange between humans and the unseen as a transaction with real limits and real risks of interception.
Fifty-one Yorùbá proverbs in which death, burial, mourning and the masquerade of the ancestors carry the argument, each with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation it is spoken in.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, 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.