Òwe on Home, the Compound and Returning
Thirteen Yorùbá proverbs on ilé as the place one returns to, distinct from ilé as lineage, showing home as rest, safety, and the fixed point every wandering measures itself against.
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Thirteen Yorùbá proverbs on ilé as the place one returns to, distinct from ilé as lineage, showing home as rest, safety, and the fixed point every wandering measures itself against.
Ilé is house, home, and compound, and this corpus's owe-family-lineage-compound treats it at length as lineage and household, the social unit answerable for its members. This file collects a narrower set: proverbs in which ilé functions specifically as the physical place one returns to, the destination that gives a journey its shape, rather than as the kin group that occupies it. The distinction is not always sharp in the Yorùbá texts themselves, since the word does not separate building from household the way English separates "house" from "family," but the proverbs gathered here are the ones whose argument turns on homecoming, rest, and safety of place rather than on lineage obligation.
Literal: Ilé the-home là ábùsinmi is-where-one-rests-from oko the-farm.
Idiomatic: "The home is where one returns for rest after the farm."
Meaning: Home is defined functionally, as the place of rest after labour, not merely as a location.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "However long one wanders, one eventually returns home"
Notes: The farm (oko) and the home (ilé) form the basic spatial pair of Yorùbá agrarian life, treated further in file 83; this proverb states the home's role in that pair directly, as the place of rest that gives the farm's labour its point.
Source: Owomoyela 3088.
Literal: Ilé home ni ọ̀bàyí máa bọ̀ sí is-where-the-houseboy will-return to.
Idiomatic: "The home is the place the houseboy returns to."
Meaning: Whatever a dependent's wanderings, home remains the fixed point of eventual return.
Used when: Used of anyone, however far or long they have travelled, for whom home remains the ultimate destination.
Notes: Owomoyela records this proverb immediately following entry 1 above, and the pairing suggests a small cluster on the same theme, home as destination, applied first to the farm labourer and then to a household dependent specifically.
Source: Owomoyela 3089.
Literal: Àáyá bọ́ sílẹ̀ the-colobus-monkey jumps to-the-ground, ó bọ́ sílé it flees to-home.
Idiomatic: "The colobus monkey jumps to the ground; it runs for home."
Meaning: When danger threatens, the wisest course is flight toward home, not toward anywhere merely safe.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "When danger lurks, the wisest course is to run for safety"
Notes: The proverb specifically names home, not simply "cover" or "the trees," as the monkey's destination under threat, which makes home the presumed default place of safety even for an animal, not only for humans.
Source: Owomoyela 670.
Literal: Bí a kò ránni sọ́jà if one does-not send-a-message to-the-market, ọjà kì í ránni sílé the-market does-not send-a-message to-one at-home.
Idiomatic: "If one does not send a message to the market, the market does not send a message to one at home."
Meaning: Home is a passive recipient, not an active seeker; whatever reaches it must first be sent out from it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Without making an effort, one cannot expect rewards"
Notes: This proverb positions home and the market (treated further in file 85) as the two poles of ordinary Yorùbá daily movement, with home as the base from which outward effort must originate before any return can be expected.
Source: Owomoyela 842.
Literal: Ewúrẹ́ jẹ ó relé the-goat forages and-returns-home; àgùntàn jẹ ó relé the-sheep forages and-returns-home; à-jẹ-ì-wálé ló ba ẹlẹ́dẹ̀ jẹ́ eating-and-not-returning-home is-what-ruins the-pig.
Idiomatic: "The goat forages and returns home; the sheep forages and returns home; the pig's flaw is its habit of not returning home after foraging."
Meaning: Foraging or wandering is not itself the fault; the fault is failing to return home once it is done.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "There is nothing wrong with traveling, as long as one knows when to go home"
Notes: Three domestic animals are ranked by the same single criterion, whether they come home, which makes explicit that the proverb's real subject is discipline about return rather than about foraging or travel as such.
Source: Owomoyela 1477.
Literal: O lọ sí Ìjẹ̀bú kan you went to Ìjẹ̀bú once, o rú igbá àṣẹ bọ̀ wálé you brought a-calabash of-charms home.
Idiomatic: "You made only one trip to Ìjèbú and you returned with a calabash of charms."
Meaning: Said of a person whose reaction to a single, brief experience is wildly out of proportion to it.
Used when: Used to mock someone who overreacts to a minor exposure by returning transformed or overloaded with new habits or claims.
Notes: The proverb assumes a real geography, a journey to Ìjẹ̀bú, and treats what is brought back home as evidence of what happened on the road; it is a rare case in this file's set where the point of the proverb depends on the mismatch between the brevity of the journey and the weight of what is carried home from it.
Source: Owomoyela 1705.
Literal: Pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ́ it-may-take-long, ẹní lọ sódò á bọ̀ wálé whoever went to-the-stream will-return home.
Idiomatic: "It may take a while, but the person who went to the stream will return home."
Meaning: However long delayed, a completed errand ends in the return home; there is no journey that does not eventually conclude.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "There is no journey that does not end sometime"
Notes: Owomoyela pairs this proverb with a preceding entry on the same pípẹ́ ni yó pẹ́ formula applied to truth eventually surfacing (entry 1882, "the deceitful person will not be undiscovered"), suggesting the formula is productive across several domains, with the returning traveller being one specific application.
Source: Owomoyela 1883.
Literal: Kò sí ohun tó dàbí-i there-is-nothing that-compares ká wá ni wálé to-visiting-one at-home.
Idiomatic: "There is nothing that compares with being visited at home."
Meaning: Being sought out and visited in one's own home is a distinct and especially high honour.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "It is a great honor to be visited in one's home"
Notes: This proverb inverts the direction of most of this file's other entries, which are about the traveller returning home; here the honour is in home receiving a visitor, which makes home not only a destination for its own occupant but also a site of hospitality whose visitation by others confers status.
Source: Owomoyela 2981.
Literal: A kì í ṣe ọ̀rẹ́ èrò one does-not befriend a-sojourner ká yọ̀ and rejoice; èrò yó relé bó dọ̀la the-sojourner will-return-home come-tomorrow.
Idiomatic: "One does not befriend a sojourner and rejoice; the sojourner will leave for home come tomorrow."
Meaning: Friendship with someone only passing through is not worth the same investment as a durable tie, because they will inevitably return to their own home.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Permanent ties are to be preferred to fleeting ones"
Notes: The proverb assumes that a sojourner's own home exerts a stronger, prior claim on them than any tie made away from it, treating "returns home eventually" as close to a law of behaviour rather than a mere possibility.
Source: Owomoyela 3283.
Literal: Ẹni tí a bá ròde là ḿbá relé the-one-with-whom-one went-out is-who-one returns-home-with; ẹni ajá bá wá lajá ḿbá lọ the-one the-dog came-with is-who-the-dog leaves-with.
Idiomatic: "One returns home with the person one went out with; the dog departs with the person it came with."
Meaning: One should not abandon a partner or collaborator partway through an engagement; the return home should match the departure.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One should not drop one's partner or collaborator in the midst of an engagement" A close variant, entry 3393, makes the identical point using only the dog: Ẹni tí ajá bá wá sóde lajá ḿbá relé, "Whoever the dog came out with is the person the dog returns home with," with the note "One should remain faithful to one's companions"
Notes: Both versions use the symmetry of departure and return, going out and coming home together, as the structural argument for loyalty, treating the home-bound leg of a journey as the test of a companionship formed on the outward leg.
Source: Owomoyela 3391; variant 3393.
Literal: A kì í sùn sílé ẹni one does-not sleep in-one's-own-home ká fọrùn ṣẹ́ and break one's-neck.
Idiomatic: "One does not sleep in one's own home and break one's neck."
Meaning: A person does not come to harm while safely occupied within their own home and their own affairs.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "A person does not get into trouble while minding his or her own business"
Notes: This proverb states directly the assumption underlying entries 3 and 8, that home is the place of safety, by imagining the specific absurdity of being harmed there while doing nothing but resting.
Source: Owomoyela 4347.
Literal: Bí a bá tọ́ sílẹ̀ if someone wets-the-bed, oníṣàpò a mọ ipò each-person should-know their-place/position (where they slept).
Idiomatic: "If someone wets the bed, each person should know where he or she slept."
Meaning: In the event of a shared domestic mishap, each person's own place is what identifies responsibility, and the guilty should not attempt to shift blame within the household.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "In the event of a crime, the guilty should not attempt to shift the blame to others"
Notes: The proverb assumes a specific, ordinary domestic arrangement, several people sleeping in the same space, plausibly children in a shared room within the compound, and treats spatial position within the home as the evidence that settles the question of fault.
Source: Owomoyela 230.
Literal: Àìsí-ń lé ológbò the-absence of-a-cat from-the-house, ilé di ilé èkúté the-house becomes house of-mice.
Idiomatic: "In the absence of a cat in the house, the house becomes the house of mice."
Meaning: Without its proper guardian or authority present, a household falls to whoever is left to occupy it, however unfit.
Used when: Used of any place or office that, once its rightful authority is absent, is overrun by lesser or unwanted occupants.
Notes: This proverb turns on a distinction between ilé as physical shelter, equally available to cat or mouse, and ilé as a household under an authority; here the physical shelter persists unchanged while its character is entirely determined by who is, or is not, present to govern it. Owomoyela cross-references a following proverb making the same point about a master's absence letting a minion strut (entry 146) .
Source: Owomoyela 144.
Home is defined by function, not only by location. Entry 1 states this directly: home is "where one rests from the farm," a role rather than a fixed point on a map. Read against file 80's proverbs on the road, which treat travel as the domain of exposure and testing, this file's proverbs consistently treat home as the domain of rest, safety, and eventual, expected return, so that the road and the home function as a matched pair across the two files.
Loyalty and discipline are measured by whether one returns. Entries 5, 9, and 10 all use the fact of returning home, or failing to, as direct evidence of character: the pig's flaw is not wandering but not coming back; the sojourner's tie is weak because home will inevitably pull them away; the loyal companion is the one who leaves and returns together with the other. Home functions in these proverbs less as a place than as the fixed reference point against which movement, and the character shown in that movement, is judged.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about the household, the lineage, the father's house and the obligations that follow from being born into a particular family.
Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs in which ọ̀nà (the road) and àjò (the journey) carry an argument about home, return, exposure, and what a traveller cannot leave behind.
Sixteen Yorùbá proverbs on ìlú, the town, showing it as the site of public reputation, of collective liability for disruptive individuals, and of the deference owed to place.
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.