Òwe on the Doorway, Threshold and Boundary

Ojúlé, literally "the face of the house," is the doorway or entrance, and àlà or pàlà is a boundary line, most often a farm or land boundary. This file collects eight proverbs built on these terms, a modest number for the section's usual range, and reports that modesty rather than padding it. What the eight proverbs do share is a consistent logic: the doorway and the boundary line are treated as places where jurisdiction, obligation, and fairness are tested and made visible, not as passive architectural or geographic facts.

The proverbs

1. A kì í bá ọba pàlà kí ọkọ ọba má ṣàn-án ní ẹsẹ̀.

Literal: A kì í bá ọba pàlà one does-not share a-farm-boundary with-a-king kí ọkọ ọba má ṣàn-án ní ẹsẹ̀ without the-king's-hoe gashing-one at-the-foot.

Idiomatic: "One does not share a farm boundary with a king without getting one's feet gashed by the king's hoe." 1

Meaning: Proximity to someone in authority, sharing a border with them, carries a real risk of injury or encroachment from their side.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One should be cautious in dealing with people in authority" 1

Notes: The pàlà, farm boundary, is here the site where an ordinary, unequal power relationship becomes concrete: it is at the shared edge, not anywhere else, that the king's careless or presumptuous encroachment is felt.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 5.

2. Ajá kì í rorò kó ṣọ́ ojúlé méjì.

Literal: Ajá kì í rorò a-dog is-never-so-fierce kó ṣọ́ ojúlé méjì that-it-can-guard two-doorways.

Idiomatic: "A dog is never so fierce that it can guard two doorways." 1

Meaning: No one, however capable, can properly serve two masters or watch over two obligations at once.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One cannot serve two masters simultaneously" 1

Notes: The doorway (ojúlé) here functions as the unit of a single, exclusive obligation; the proverb's force depends on a dog's guard duty being tied to one specific entrance, not to the house or compound generally.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 148.

3. Ọ̀kánjúwà ológbò tó jókòó sẹ́nu ọ̀nà: ṣé eku eléku ló fẹ́ pa jẹ?

Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà ológbò tó jókòó sẹ́nu ọ̀nà the-greedy cat that sits at-the-entrance/doorway: ṣé eku eléku ló fẹ́ pa jẹ? does-it want-to kill and-eat another-house's-mice?

Idiomatic: "The insatiable cat that sits in the doorway: does it want to kill cats in another house?" 1

Meaning: A greedy person, already positioned at the threshold of plenty, is never satisfied and eyes what belongs to others besides.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Greedy people are never satisfied with what they have" 1

Notes: Owomoyela's footnote observes that the cat sitting in the doorway is not, in fact, paying close attention to the household mice it is nominally positioned to guard against, which sharpens the proverb's point: the doorway position is wasted on a creature whose appetite has already wandered elsewhere [S1, note 80].

Source: 1 Owomoyela 1829, with note 80.

4. Bí ojú bá kọ ojú, àlà yó tọ́ nídìí ìgbá.

Literal: Bí ojú bá kọ ojú if eye meets eye, àlà yó tọ́ nídìí ìgbá the-boundary-line will-be-straight at-the-base of-the-locust-tree.

Idiomatic: "If eyes meet eyes, the boundary line will be straight at the base of the locust tree." 1

Meaning: When all interested parties are present and watching one another, a division of land or property is drawn fairly.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "When all parties participate in dividing something among them, no one is cheated" 1

Notes: The proverb names a specific, recognisable landmark, the base of a locust tree, as the kind of fixed point a boundary line (àlà) is drawn against, grounding the claim about fairness in the concrete practice of marking land.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 3062.

5. Ọ̀-pani-nítàn ní ń fi ojúlé ẹni hàn-án ni.

Literal: Ọ̀-pani-nítàn the-one-who-tells-one-one's-own-history ní ń fi ojúlé ẹni hàn-án ni is-who shows-one the-doorway of-one's-own-home.

Idiomatic: "It is the person who tells one one's own history that shows one the doorway to one's own home." 1

Meaning: Those who know one's lineage and past can orient a person back to their own origins in a way the person cannot manage alone.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "We would do well to pay attention to the words of the sages who know more than we do about our own lineage" 1

Notes: The doorway here stands for the point of origin and belonging, not a physical structure to be entered so much as the recognised threshold of one's own identity and household; the proverb links this file's spatial vocabulary to lineage themes treated at length in 10-owe-family-lineage-compound.md.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 3271.

6. Akẹ́san lọ̀pin Ọ̀yọ́; ibi a báni lọ́wọ́ ni ilé ẹni.

Literal: Akẹ́san lọ̀pin Ọ̀yọ́ Akẹ́san is-the-boundary of-Ọ̀yọ́; ibi a báni lọ́wọ́ ni ilé ẹni the-place where-one-is-found-in-dignity is one's-home.

Idiomatic: "Akẹsan is the boundary of Ọ̀yọ́; the place where one is found in dignity is one's home." 1

Meaning: Home is not fixed to a particular location but is wherever a person is welcomed and treated with dignity.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Home is wherever one is welcome and accorded dignity" 1

Notes: Owomoyela's footnote explains that Akẹ́san, the king's market in Ọ̀yọ́, was traditionally sited at the edge of the city, so that the expression translated as "the end" or "boundary" could equally mean "the ultimate place," since the market was the focus of important events in the city's life; the proverb remains applicable, Owomoyela notes, even though the city later grew far beyond that original market boundary [S1, note 2]. This is the clearest instance in the file of a named, historically real municipal boundary being used as the literal anchor for a proverb about belonging in the more general sense.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 4394, with note 2.

7. Bí a kò fẹ́ ẹni nílùú, a kì í tó abẹrẹ́ ẹ̀.

Literal: Bí a kò fẹ́ ẹni nílùú if one is-not wanted in-a-town, a kì í tó abẹrẹ́ ẹ̀ one is-not-worth [even] its needle.

Idiomatic: "If one is not wanted in a town, one is not worth [as much as] a needle there." 1

Meaning: Belonging is conditional on being wanted; without that welcome, a person's standing in a place is worth almost nothing, however long they may have been present.

Used when: Used, in sequence with entry 6, to reinforce the point that residence and welcome are not the same thing.

Notes: Read directly after entry 6 in Owomoyela's own sequence, this proverb supplies the negative case: a town's physical boundary may contain a person without that person having any real place within it, which completes entry 6's argument that dignity, not location, defines home.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 4395.

8. Èèmọ̀ lukutupu bẹ́: ìyàwó lóyún tán, ọ̀nà ò gba ọkọ.

Literal: Èèmọ̀ lukutupu bẹ́ unspeakable abomination happened: ìyàwó lóyún tán the-wife became-pregnant, ọ̀nà ò gba ọkọ the-doorway does-not admit the-husband.

Idiomatic: "Unspeakable abomination: the wife becomes pregnant, and the doorway cannot accommodate the husband." 1

Meaning: The person with the actual problem (the wife's pregnancy) shows no visible strain, while a bystander (the husband, swollen with pride or anxiety) is the one who cannot fit through the door.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "The person with a problem shows no adverse effects, but the bystander does" 1

Notes: The doorway's fixed, literal width is the mechanism of the joke: it is an ordinary architectural constraint used to dramatise a wildly disproportionate reaction, and it belongs to the same èèmọ̀ ("unspeakable abomination") formula documented in file 77, entry 12, though here applied comically rather than to a genuinely grave condition.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 4923.

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Reading this set

Eight proverbs is a thin yield for this file relative to the section's usual range, and it is reported honestly rather than padded. A targeted search of the full text of Owomoyela's collection for ojúlé (doorway), àlà and pàlà (boundary), and the English glosses "doorway," "threshold," and "boundary" turned up this set and no further clearly on-theme material; Owomoyela's collection, thematically arranged around character, fortune, relationships, and human nature rather than around physical space, simply does not contain a dedicated cluster of threshold proverbs the way it contains a dedicated cluster on, for instance, fate or mortality. What the eight proverbs found do show, consistently, is the doorway and the boundary functioning as sites where a single relationship, one obligation (entry 2), one encroachment (entry 1), one act of fair division (entry 4), one disproportionate reaction (entry 8), is made visible and tested, never as passive scenery.