Òwe on Gratitude, Ingratitude and Reciprocity
Twenty-one Yorùbá proverbs on doing and receiving favors, the risk that kindness goes unrewarded or turns to harm, and the moral weight of ingratitude, drawn from a thinner sourced record than most themes in this corpus.
This file collects twenty-one Yorùbá proverbs on oore, a favor or kindness done for someone, and on what happens to it afterward: whether it is returned, wasted, forgotten, or repaid with harm. Gratitude and reciprocity are thinner in the sourced record than most other themes in this batch, and this file is honest about that rather than padding to a round number. What the record does contain is not really proverbs spoken by a grateful receiver. It is proverbs spoken from the position of the giver, weighing whether to do a kindness at all, and proverbs that describe what a favor does to its own future once it is out of the giver's hands. Ingratitude appears mainly as the thing the giver fears, not as a fault named and condemned from the receiver's side.
How this file is sourced
The proverbs below are drawn from Oyekan Owomoyela's digitised The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yorùbá Proverb Treasury, hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries Electronic Text Center, primarily Part 6, "On consideration, kindness, and thoughtfulness" A smaller number come from Parts 2 and 3 of the same digitised excerpts, "On perspicaciousness, circumspection, and wisdom" and "On caution, moderation, and prudence," where they surfaced in the course of a keyword search for oore (favor, kindness), olóore (a kind person), dúpẹ́ (to give thanks), and ẹ̀san (reward, requital) across those sections' proverbs on other primary subjects. Each entry below is marked with the part it was drawn from in its Notes. Owomoyela's parenthetical usage notes are the basis of the Used when lines; where the wording of a note is his, it is quoted. Anything marked as the compiler's own carries lower confidence.
Owomoyela's own six-part organizing scheme, reproduced in the wealth-and-money file of this corpus [see owe-wealth-poverty-money], has no part dedicated to gratitude or reciprocity as such. The proverbs collected here surface mainly inside Part 6, which is titled around the giver's virtue, consideration and kindness, not around the receiver's response to it. That is a real fact about how this corpus was assembled and thematized by its own compiler, not an accident of searching, and it explains why this file runs to twenty-one entries where sibling files in this batch run to forty or more. A second, related fact: several proverbs that a first search turns up as gratitude-adjacent, on inheritance, on children thanking parents, on the reciprocal warmth of a generous household, are already collected in owe-family-lineage-compound, owe-children-parenthood-inheritance, and owe-wealth-poverty-money, because Owomoyela himself groups them there. Those are cross-referenced below rather than repeated, which further thins what remains available for a file specifically on gratitude.
A web search for peer-reviewed or university-press scholarship specifically treating gratitude, ingratitude, or reciprocity in Yorùbá proverbs turned up one further usable text, closing the file: Salahu-Deen and Ọlawale's article on educational principles in Yorùbá proverbs, published in the Journal of African Language Teachers Association . It prints a proverb on reciprocal treatment between people of unequal status, gathered from a named fieldwork informant in Kwara State in 2025, in full standard orthography. Most other search results were non-scholarly aggregator sites (blog posts, listicle pages, social media accounts) and are not used here, consistent with this corpus's sourcing rule.
None of the twenty-one proverbs below duplicate entries already collected in owe-iwa-character, owe-truthfulness-lying-integrity, owe-pride-humility-self-knowledge, owe-family-lineage-compound, owe-children-parenthood-inheritance, or owe-wealth-poverty-money. Confirmed near-duplicates and thematic overlaps found during compilation are noted in place.
Doing a favor and what becomes of it
1. Àgbà ṣoore má wo bẹ̀.
Literal: Àgbà elder, ṣoore do-a-favor má wo bẹ̀ do-not watch it.
Idiomatic: "Elder, do a favor and remove your eyes from it."
Meaning: A kindness, once done, should be let go rather than monitored for return.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Do not advertize your acts of kindness, or pointedly await acknowledgment of them"
Notes: From Part 6 of the digitised excerpts. The verb wo, to watch or look at, treats a favor as an object a person might keep an eye on the way one watches a debtor, and the proverb's whole force is telling the elder to stop doing that. It sets the terms for the rest of this file: from the giver's side, expecting gratitude is itself a mild fault, which is one reason the record is thin on proverbs praising a grateful receiver by name.
2. A kì í ṣoore tán ká lóṣòó tì í.
Literal: A kì í ṣoore tán one does-not do-a-favor finish ká lóṣòó tì í and camp beside it.
Idiomatic: "One does not do a favor and then camp by it."
Meaning: A completed kindness should be left behind, not lingered over.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Having done some good, do not hang around to compel gratitude"
Notes: From Part 2 of the digitised excerpts (perspicaciousness and wisdom), where it appears among proverbs about self-control rather than about kindness as such, evidence that Owomoyela's own thematic sorting treats "do not linger for thanks" as a discipline problem more than a kindness problem. A near-restatement of entry 1's claim with a different image, camping rather than watching, which suggests the caution against soliciting gratitude was common enough to attract more than one fixed phrasing.
3. A-ṣoore-jókòó-tì-í, bí aláìṣe ni.
Literal: A-ṣoore-jókòó-tì-í one-who-does-a-favor-and-sits-beside-it, bí aláìṣe ni is-like one-who-has-done-nothing.
Idiomatic: "A person who does a favor and squats by it is like a person who has done no favor."
Meaning: Waiting visibly for acknowledgment cancels the credit of the kindness itself.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not dwell on what favor one has done"
Notes: From Part 2 of the digitised excerpts. The compressed nominal A-ṣoore-jókòó-tì-í is built the same way as the a- agentive epithets throughout this corpus (compare À-bí-ì-kọ́ in owe-iwa-character), naming a type of person through a whole clause rather than an adjective. This is the sharpest of the three "do not wait by your favor" proverbs in this file: it does not just discourage the behavior, it says the behavior erases the deed.
4. Ilé olóore kì í wó tán; tìkà kì í wó kù.
Literal: Ilé olóore the-house of-a-kind-person kì í wó tán never collapses completely; tìkà that-of-a-wicked-person kì í wó kù never collapses leaving-anything-standing.
Idiomatic: "The home of a kind-hearted person never collapses completely; the home of a wicked person always collapses, leaving nothing standing."
Meaning: Kindness leaves something standing even in ruin; wickedness takes everything down with it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Good will attract good, and evil will attract evil"
Notes: From Part 6. A companion image to Igbá olóore kì í fọ́, already collected in owe-wealth-poverty-money, which uses an unbreakable calabash for the identical claim about a kind person's household. That entry and this one are printed by Owomoyela as cross-referenced variants of the same underlying proverb; this file uses the house version because the calabash version is already placed in the wealth file.
5. Oore kì í gbé; ìkà kì í dànù; à-ṣoore-jindò ní mmúni pàdánù oore.
Literal: Oore kì í gbé a-good-deed does-not go-lost; ìkà kì í dànù a-wicked-deed does-not spill-away; à-ṣoore-jindò doing-a-favor-while-drowning-in-a-river ní mmúni pàdánù oore is-what makes-one lose-out-on the-favor.
Idiomatic: "A good deed does not go for nought; a wicked deed is never lost; drowning while doing a favor is what makes the good person lose out on the rewards for his goodness."
Meaning: Both kindness and wickedness are repaid in kind, in principle, but the manner of a kindness can still cost the giver its reward.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Every kindness, like every wickedness, is rewarded; one should be prudent, though, in doing favors"
Notes: From Part 6. This is the clearest statement in the whole set of a general law of reciprocity, good returns to the giver, evil returns to its doer, and it is immediately qualified by its own third clause: a kindness performed recklessly (the drowning image) can still be lost. The proverb refuses the simple version of its own claim in the same breath it states it, which is consistent with how this corpus elsewhere shows proverbs undercutting their own generalizations.
6. Tìkà toore, ọ̀kan kì í gbé.
Literal: Tìkà wickedness toore and-kindness, ọ̀kan kì í gbé neither is-lost.
Idiomatic: "Wickedness or kindness, neither goes for nought."
Meaning: Both good and ill treatment eventually come back to the person who dealt them.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Wickedness and kindness will be rewarded unfailingly"
Notes: From Part 6. The two-word compression of tìkà toore pairs the terms as a single unit before the verb arrives, so the sentence states the symmetry grammatically before it states it as a claim. A shorter, unqualified restatement of entry 5's law, without that entry's caution about the manner of doing a favor.
7. "Má fẹ̀ẹ́ ọwọ́-ọ̀ mi kù" tí ńyan gúgúrú fún eégún; eégún náàá ní "Má fẹ̀ẹ́ ọwọ́-ọ̀ mi kù"; ó fún un ní ọmọláńgidi.
Literal: "Má fẹ̀ẹ́ ọwọ́-ọ̀ mi kù" "so-that my-hand not be-found-empty" tí ńyan gúgúrú fún eégún roasted popcorn for a-masquerader; eégún náàá ní the-masquerader too said "Má fẹ̀ẹ́ ọwọ́-ọ̀ mi kù"; ó fún un ní ọmọláńgidi he gave him a-wooden-doll.
Idiomatic: "'Just so you won't find my hand empty' roasted popcorn for the masquerader; the masquerader also responded with 'Just so you won't find my hands empty' and gave him a wooden doll."
Meaning: A gift offered as a token, not as an obligation, is answered by a token in return: reciprocity here is a matching gesture, not a settled debt.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Stinginess will not win generosity in return" , glossing this proverb against its companion in the same cluster.
Notes: From Part 6. The masquerader, eégún, is a costumed ancestral performer given gifts by onlookers in real festival practice, so the exchange described is not invented but a recognisable ritual moment. Both sides speak the identical formula before giving, which stages reciprocity as an exact echo: the same words, a matched register of gift, popcorn for a small carved doll rather than anything grander.
8. M̀bá-lówó-m̀bá-se-ọ̀lẹ̀lẹ̀-fún-Agọ́n: ìjímèrè kì í jẹ oko ẹ̀ kó sọ̀.
Literal: M̀bá-lówó-m̀bá-se-ọ̀lẹ̀lẹ̀-fún-Agọ́n had-I-money-I-would-cook-bean-cake-for-Agọ́n: ìjímèrè kì í jẹ oko ẹ̀ the-brown-monkey does-not eat his farm kó sọ̀ and-he complain.
Idiomatic: "Had I money I would cook bean meal for the Agọ́n masquerader; the brown monkey's raiding of his farm never elicits a complaint from him."
Meaning: A person who cannot repay a favor in kind at least withholds resentment from the one who benefits at their expense, in the way a poor man who cannot feed a masquerader will not begrudge a monkey the little it takes.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should acknowledge and reciprocate favors done one by others"
Notes: From Part 6. The proverb is built as a whole compressed nominal, the wish itself, had I money, standing in for the person who holds it, a construction this corpus's other files also note as a way Yorùbá proverbs characterise a type through their own unspoken words. Owomoyela's usage note reads the proverb as being about acknowledging favors owed to oneself; the text itself is at least as much about a person too poor to give who is nonetheless careful not to complain when a small amount is taken from him, and the two readings sit only loosely together. Confidence on the fit between text and gloss: medium.
When a favor turns to harm
9. Igún ṣoore ó pá lórí, àkàlà-á ṣoore ó yọ gẹ̀gẹ̀; nítorí ọjọ́ mìíràn kẹni ó má ṣe oore bẹ́ẹ̀ mọ́.
Literal: Igún ṣoore the-vulture did-a-favor ó pá lórí it-became bald-headed; àkàlà-á ṣoore the-hornbill did-a-favor ó yọ gẹ̀gẹ̀ it-developed a-goiter; nítorí ọjọ́ mìíràn because-of another-day kẹni ó má ṣe oore bẹ́ẹ̀ mọ́ let-one not do that-kind-of-favor again.
Idiomatic: "The vulture did others a favor and became bald in return; the hornbill did others a favor and developed a goiter in return; in the future, one should not do those kinds of favor."
Meaning: Some kindnesses are paid back with disfigurement rather than thanks, and the proverb draws the practical conclusion: stop doing that particular kind of favor.
Used when: Said of a person warning against repeating a costly generosity .
Notes: From Part 3 of the digitised excerpts (caution, moderation, and prudence), not from the kindness section, which places this proverb's real weight on caution rather than on gratitude. This is the opening text of a cluster of at least four variants on the vulture-and-hornbill image that Owomoyela cross-references across different parts of his collection: see entries 10 and 11 below, and compare the shorter Ẹni tí a ṣe lóore tí kò dúpẹ́ on ingratitude proper. The bird images (baldness, goiter) are read in Yorùbá oral literature as marks the birds actually bear, so the proverb is offering a folk etiology for those features as the price of an ancestral kindness, not merely a metaphor.
10. Ooré di ẹrẹ̀ lAwẹ́; àwọn igúnnugún ṣoore wọ́n pá lórí.
Literal: Ooré di ẹrẹ̀ a-favor became mud lAwẹ́ in-Awẹ́ town; àwọn igúnnugún ṣoore the-vultures did-a-favor wọ́n pá lórí they-became bald-headed.
Idiomatic: "A favor has turned to mud in Awẹ́ town; the vulture did a favor and went bald."
Meaning: A good deed done in a particular place, or a particular kind of good deed, has a known local history of going wrong for the person who did it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be careful about doing favors, lest they come back to haunt one"
Notes: From Part 3. Awẹ́ is a real town in present-day Oyo State, and naming it grounds an otherwise general warning in a specific, presumably remembered, local case, the way owe-iwa-character notes that a historical marker like the "European dog" can date a proverb. This is the variant of entry 9 that gives the warning a place rather than a general "in the future," and Owomoyela cross-references the two directly.
11. Oore tí Agbe-é ṣe lỌ́fà, ó dagbe.
Literal: Oore tí Agbe-é ṣe the-favor that Agbe did lỌ́fà in-Ọ̀fà town, ó dagbe it made-him a-beggar.
Idiomatic: "The favor Agbe did in Ọ̀fà town reduced him to begging."
Meaning: A specific act of generosity, in a specific remembered case, cost the giver everything he had.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should learn from Agbe's example and be prudent in doing favors"
Notes: From Part 3. Ọ̀fà is a town in present-day Kwara State. Whether Agbe names a historical or legendary individual, or functions as a stock name the way Bánjọ does in the self-knowledge proverbs collected in owe-pride-humility-self-knowledge, is not recoverable from the text alone. The pun buried in the Yorùbá, Agbe ó dagbe, "Agbe became a beggar," a near-rhyme on the giver's own name, is part of why the case is remembered as a named cautionary tale rather than stated as a general rule.
12. Oore-é pọ̀, a fìkà san án.
Literal: Oore-é pọ̀ the-favor was-plentiful, a fìkà san án it-was-repaid with-wickedness.
Idiomatic: "The favor was excessive; it was repaid with wickedness."
Meaning: A kindness that goes beyond what is asked or expected can provoke resentment rather than gratitude.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Too great a favor provokes enmity"
Notes: From Part 3. Of all the proverbs in this file, this is the most direct statement of ingratitude as a named social fact, using san, to repay or requite, the ordinary verb of settling a debt, applied here to a debt settled backward. The claim that excessive generosity specifically invites a wicked response, rather than any generosity at all, is a sharper and less comfortable position than the flat reciprocity law of entries 5 and 6, and the two are left standing in tension rather than reconciled.
13. Ẹni tí a ṣe lóore tí kò dúpẹ́, bí ọlọ́ṣà-á kóni lẹ́rù ni.
Literal: Ẹni tí a ṣe lóore the-person for-whom one has-done a-favor tí kò dúpẹ́ who does-not give-thanks, bí ọlọ́ṣà-á kóni lẹ́rù ni is-like a-robber who-has-carried-off one's-goods.
Idiomatic: "A person whom one does a favor but who shows no gratitude is like a robber who has stolen one's goods."
Meaning: Failing to give thanks for a kindness received is treated as equivalent to theft, not merely as bad manners.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Ingratitude is comparable to robbery"
Notes: From Part 6. This is the one proverb in the file that names dúpẹ́, to give thanks, directly, and it is the closest the sourced record comes to a proverb about the receiver's obligation rather than the giver's caution. The comparison to robbery is exact rather than loose: a favor is treated as a kind of property that has left the giver's hand, and withholding the thanks due for it is framed as taking something that was never given outright.
14. Inúure kì í pani, wàhálà ní ńkó báni.
Literal: Inúure good-heartedness kì í pani does-not kill-one, wàhálà trouble ní ńkó báni is-what it brings-one.
Idiomatic: "Good will towards others does not kill; it only gets one into trouble."
Meaning: Kindness is not fatal, but it reliably invites complications for the person who extends it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be wary of kindness to others"
Notes: From Part 6, printed there immediately after Inú búburú, oògùn òṣì ("ill will is the medicine that ensures misfortune"), and cross-referenced to it by Owomoyela, so the pairing sets the risk of doing good directly against the risk of doing harm and finds them asymmetric: harm brings clear misfortune, kindness brings only trouble, which is a smaller but still real cost. This is the bleakest proverb in the file about the practice of kindness itself, and it belongs beside entries 9 through 12 as evidence that the sourced tradition treats generosity as genuinely risky rather than automatically rewarded, despite what entries 5 and 6 claim.
15. O ní kí ará ọ̀run ṣe oore fún ọ; bẹ́ẹ̀ni o rí ẹni tí eégún ńlé, tó fá lọ́bẹ̀ lá.
Literal: O ní kí ará ọ̀run ṣe oore fún ọ you say let the-person-from-heaven do a-favor for-you; bẹ́ẹ̀ni o rí ẹni tí eégún ńlé yet you see the-one whom the-masquerader is-chasing, tó fá lọ́bẹ̀ lá whose stew he licked-up.
Idiomatic: "You pray to the being from heaven to grant you a boon; yet you can see the person being chased by the masquerader and whose stew the masquerader has consumed."
Meaning: A person who has already treated someone else badly should not expect that same person, or a being like them, to answer a plea for kindness.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not expect to receive better treatment from a person who is known to be vicious to others"
Notes: From Part 2. Ará ọ̀run, "person from heaven," and the masquerader, eégún, are treated as versions of the same figure, an ancestral visitor whose conduct toward one household predicts its conduct toward another. This is the closest proverb in the file to stating reciprocity as a warning rather than a promise: it does not say good is returned for good, it says a known bad actor's future kindness cannot be counted on, which is a narrower and more defensible claim than entries 5 and 6's general law.
Miserliness as a failure of exchange
16. Àgbò ò ṣéé mú; ọ̀dá ò ṣéé mú; ohun gbogbo ní ńtóbi lójú ahun.
Literal: Àgbò ò ṣéé mú a-ram cannot be-given; ọ̀dá ò ṣéé mú a-gelded-animal cannot be-given; ohun gbogbo ní ńtóbi lójú ahun everything is-excessive in-the-eye of-a-miser.
Idiomatic: "A ram is too much to give; a gelded animal is too much to give; everything is excessive in the sight of a miser."
Meaning: To a person unwilling to give, every possible gift looks too large to part with.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Expect no favor from a miser"
Notes: From Part 6. The proverb names two animals of visibly different value, a breeding ram and an already-gelded, lesser one, and denies both equally, which is the joke: the miser's objection is never really about the size of the gift, since no size would satisfy it. This entry and the two following belong to reciprocity because a miser is, in this corpus's logic, someone who has removed himself from the exchange of favors altogether, not merely someone careful with money; see owe-wealth-poverty-money for the miser proverbs concerned with wealth and spending rather than with the give-and-take of kindness.
17. "Kiní yìí ò pọ̀; ng ò lè fún ọ níbẹ̀": olúwarẹ̀ ahun ni.
Literal: "Kiní yìí ò pọ̀" this thing is-not plentiful; "ng ò lè fún ọ níbẹ̀" I cannot give you some-of-it: olúwarẹ̀ ahun ni its-owner is-a-miser.
Idiomatic: "'This thing is not plentiful; I cannot give you some of it': the person is a miser."
Meaning: Claiming there is not enough to share, when asked, marks the speaker as a miser regardless of how much is actually on hand.
Used when: Owomoyela: "However little one has one should be willing to spare some for others"
Notes: From Part 6. Printed by Owomoyela immediately beside its mirror-image companion, entry 18 below, which redirects the identical charge at the receiver rather than the giver; the pairing shows the proverb tradition holding both sides of an exchange to account rather than excusing the receiver by default.
18. "Kiní yìí tí o fún mi ò pọ̀": ahun ní ńjẹ́ bẹ́ẹ̀.
Literal: "Kiní yìí tí o fún mi ò pọ̀" this thing that you gave me is-not plentiful: ahun ní ńjẹ́ bẹ́ẹ̀ a-miser is-who says that.
Idiomatic: "'This thing that you have given me is not plentiful': that statement indicates a greedy person."
Meaning: Complaining that a gift received was too small is itself a form of greed, not a fair complaint.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not be too demanding of one's benefactors"
Notes: From Part 6, the direct companion to entry 17. Where that proverb calls out the giver who claims false scarcity, this one calls out the receiver who disparages a real gift, and Owomoyela cross-references the two explicitly. Together they are the clearest evidence in this file's source material that ingratitude and stinginess were treated as versions of the same fault, viewed from either end of the exchange.
19. "Mú wá, mú wá" lapá ẹyẹlé ńké.
Literal: "Mú wá, mú wá" bring bring lapá ẹyẹlé ńké is-what the-wing of-the-pigeon calls.
Idiomatic: "'Bring! Bring!' is the sound of the pigeon's wings."
Meaning: Some people's whole manner is oriented toward receiving, with nothing directed toward giving.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Some people know only how to take, never how to give"
Notes: From Part 6. The proverb turns the sound of a pigeon's wingbeat, an incidental noise with no meaning of its own, into a demand, by hearing it as repeated Yorùbá words. Owomoyela records a companion proverb about the Ọ̀yọ́ court's characteristic command being "Bring" rather than "Take," glossed "it is good to give as well as to receive," which makes the pigeon's one-way cry a smaller, individual version of the same complaint about persons who take without ever completing the exchange.
20. Ọtí gbélé ahun ó kan.
Literal: Ọtí gbélé ahun wine stays-in-the-home of-a-miser ó kan it turns-sour.
Idiomatic: "Wine stays in the home of the miser until it goes sour."
Meaning: A miser would rather let a good thing spoil unused than share it, and the thing is lost either way.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The miser would rather see things go bad than share them with others"
Notes: From Part 6. Closing the file on the same note the wealth file's miser proverbs strike (see owe-wealth-poverty-money entry 37, on the miser's own pocket eventually forcing the spending he would not do willingly): withholding is shown here not as prudence but as a loss that happens anyway, only without anyone else benefiting from it first. Read against entry 13's ingratitude-as-robbery, the two proverbs frame the failure of reciprocity from opposite ends: one names the receiver who takes without thanks, the other names the giver who will not give at all, and neither comes out of the exchange better off.
Reciprocal treatment across status
21. Bí Eégún ńlá bá ní òhun ò rí gọ̀ǹtọ̀, gọ̀ǹtọ̀ náà a ní òhun ò rí Eégún ńlá.
Literal: Bí Eégún ńlá bá ní if the-big masquerade says òhun ò rí gọ̀ǹtọ̀ it does-not see the-small-masquerade, gọ̀ǹtọ̀ náà a ní the-small-masquerade too will-say òhun ò rí Eégún ńlá it does-not see the-big-masquerade.
Idiomatic: "If a big masquerade claims it doesn't see the smaller masquerade, the small masquerade will also claim it doesn't see the big masquerade."
Meaning: Salahu-Deen and Ọlawale, quoting their informant J. A. Bawa: "If an important man does not respect those less important than himself, less important men will, in turn, refuse to give him his due"
Used when: The authors gloss it as a proverb about the necessity of reciprocal respect between people of unequal status, applied in their article to the relationship between a teacher and students .
Notes: This entry is not drawn from Owomoyela and stands apart from the rest of the file on that basis: the Yorùbá is printed with full tone marks by the source, attributed to a named living informant, J. A. Bawa, interviewed in Malete, Kwara State, in January 2025, rather than to Owomoyela's undated fieldwork. Its subject is reciprocal respect and acknowledgment across a status difference rather than gratitude for a favor received, which is a related but distinct sense of reciprocity from the rest of this file's entries; it is included because it is the only usable peer-reviewed academic text on Yorùbá reciprocity turned up by search, and because its claim, that withholding regard from someone forfeits the regard one is owed in return, sits squarely inside this file's theme even though its idiom is masquerade rather than favor. Confidence on this entry: medium, reflecting its single-informant sourcing and its place in an education-pedagogy article rather than a proverb-focused study.
Reading this set
The thinness is itself the finding. Twenty-one proverbs is a real number against a genuinely searched record, not an artifact of insufficient effort: Owomoyela's six-part organizing scheme, reproduced faithfully across this batch's other files, simply has no section titled around gratitude or reciprocity the way it has one for humility, for consistency, or for caution. The nearest home, Part 6, "On consideration, kindness, and thoughtfulness," is organized around the person doing a kindness, not the person receiving or repaying one. That produced a real skew in what survived the search: proverbs telling a giver not to expect thanks (entries 1 through 3), proverbs warning a giver that kindness can misfire (entries 9 through 15), and proverbs naming the miser's failure to give at all (entries 16 through 20), but only one proverb, entry 13, that states the receiver's obligation directly and by name. A collection built to catalogue Yorùbá moral vocabulary from the giver's vantage will always produce this shape; it does not mean Yorùbá speech has little to say about ingratitude, only that this particular sourced digitisation does not preserve much of it as a distinct category.
Where the proverbs do speak, they hold two claims in real tension. Entries 5, 6, and 13 state or imply a confident law: kindness is repaid, wickedness is repaid, and withholding thanks is comparable to theft. Entries 9 through 12 and 14 state the opposite experience just as plainly: favors turn to mud, kindness gets a giver only trouble, excess generosity provokes enmity rather than gratitude. Owomoyela's collection does not resolve this, and neither does this file. A Yorùbá speaker reaching for a proverb about a particular act of kindness would have had both positions available and would have chosen the one that fit the occasion, which is the same interpretive caution the sibling files in this corpus apply throughout: a proverb is a tool selected case by case, not a clause in a settled doctrine.
The animal cases (entries 9 through 11) function as named precedent, not abstraction. The vulture's baldness, the hornbill's goiter, and Agbe's ruin in Ọ̀fà are each treated as a specific, locatable instance a speaker can cite the way a lawyer cites a case, complete with place names. That a caution about doing favors accumulated this much narrative specificity, while a matching account of gratitude accumulated almost none in the material searched here, is consistent with the file's larger finding: the tradition preserved in this sourced record had far more to say about the risk of giving than about the duty of receiving well.
The one supplementary source found outside Owomoyela confirms the same shape from a different angle. Entry 21, the sole usable academic text turned up by a dedicated search for scholarship on this theme, is not really about favors at all; it is about mutual respect across a status difference, gathered by a fieldworker asking about education rather than about kindness. That a targeted search for gratitude and reciprocity scholarship surfaced one proverb on a neighboring topic, rather than a cluster of proverbs on the topic itself, is further evidence that this theme is not well served by the existing academic literature on Yorùbá proverbs, whatever its place in everyday Yorùbá speech.