Twenty-two Yorùbá proverbs in which òrìṣà appear as the vehicle of an argument about human affairs, showing how ordinary speech treats the gods as present, particular, and sometimes named individually.
Where the proverbs about Olódùmarè in file 70 treat the supreme being as a single limit case, the proverbs collected here treat òrìṣà (deities, literally "selected ones" in one common gloss, though the etymology is debated; see 06-orisa/01-what-an-orisa-is.md for the fuller discussion) as plural, particular, and sometimes competitive with one another. Individual gods are named: Ṣàngó, Ògún, and, by a euphemism this file's notes explain, Ṣọ̀npọ̀nná. The proverbs are the tradition's own ordinary speech about its gods, deployed to make points about status, obligation, and self-reliance that have nothing to do with liturgy. They are documented sayings, not instructions in worship, and this file presents them as such.
Literal: Àkọ̀jọ refusal-to-acknowledge-greetings mú òrìṣà níyì gives the-god dignity.
Idiomatic: "Refusal to acknowledge salutations enhances the god's dignity."
Meaning: Aloofness from ordinary social exchange is what makes a god's standing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Distancing oneself from ordinary people lends one prestige"
Notes: The proverb uses the god's characteristic remoteness, not answering greetings the way a person would, as the source of the argument, rather than any specific deity's traits.
Source: Owomoyela 165.
Literal: Eégún ju eégún one-masquerader exceeds another-masquerader; òrìṣá ju òrìṣà one-god exceeds another-god; Pààká lé oníṣàngó wọgbó Pààká chases the-Ṣàngó-worshiper into-the-bush.
Idiomatic: "Some masqueraders are greater than others; some gods are greater than others; the masquerader Pààká chases the Ṣango worshiper into the bush."
Meaning: Hierarchy exists among the gods just as it exists among masquerade figures, and even a worshiper of a major god like Ṣàngó can be routed by a masquerader from another order.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Every company has its hierarchy; each person should know his or her place"
Notes: Eégún, the ancestral masquerade, and òrìṣà are set as parallel institutions with their own internal rankings, which the proverb uses as an argument by analogy for social hierarchy generally.
Source: Owomoyela 279.
Literal: Ẹni tó tan ara-a rẹ̀ whoever deceives himself lòrìṣà òkè ń tan is-whom the-gods-above deceive: àpọ́n tí ò láya nílé a-bachelor who has-no wife at-home, tó ní kí òrìṣà ó bùn un lọ́mọ who says let-the-god grant him a-child.
Idiomatic: "It is the person who deceives himself that the gods above deceive: a bachelor who has no wife at home but implores the gods to grant him children."
Meaning: Praying for an outcome while withholding the ordinary human action that outcome requires is self-deception, not piety.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is self-deceit to expect the gods to do everything for one who has not lifted a finger on his or her own behalf"
Notes: The gods here are not accused of failing the petitioner; the proverb's logic makes the petitioner responsible for the absurdity of the request, which is a recurring stance in this corpus (compare entries in file 74 on the limits of what sacrifice can accomplish).
Source: Owomoyela 329.
Literal: A kì í ka one does-not count ilé òrìṣà the-house/grove of-a-god kún ìlú as-part-of the-town.
Idiomatic: "One does not count a god's grove as part of the town."
Meaning: A sacred precinct is categorically distinct from ordinary settlement and should not be tallied with it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Do not list questionable items as part of your wealth"
Notes: Ilé òrìṣà is more precisely a shrine or grove, a god's dwelling, distinct from any human residence, and the proverb's practical application (accounting, tallying assets) shows how completely the distinction between sacred and profane space had become ordinary reasoning vocabulary.
Source: Owomoyela 612.
Literal: Àbá alágẹmọ the-proposal of-the-chameleon-owner lòrìṣà ń gbà is-what-the-gods accept.
Idiomatic: "The gods heed what the chameleon proposes."
Meaning: A particular figure's counsel carries weight even with the divine.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should heed the advice of trusted friends and advisers"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote traces this proverb to the era of Kurunmí, the Aare (military ruler) of Ìjaye in the 1820s, so powerful and feared that people believed even oracles could not deflect him from any course he chose to follow . This is one of the clearer cases in the collection of a proverb with a datable historical origin behind an image, the chameleon, that reads as timeless.
Source: Owomoyela 672, with Owomoyela's note 15.
Literal: Eégún tí yó gbeni the-masquerader that will-succor-one là ń dáṣọ fún is-whom-one makes-a-shroud for; òrìṣà tí yó gbeni the-god that will-succor-one là ń sìn is-whom-one worships.
Idiomatic: "It is the masquerader that succors one that one makes shrouds for; it is the god that succors one that one worships."
Meaning: Devotion follows demonstrated benefit, not obligation in the abstract.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should confine one's efforts to profitable ventures and one's service to appreciative people" The proverb continues: bí igí bá gbè mí mà kó obì mà bọ igi, "if a tree succors me, I will take kola nuts and worship the tree," extending the logic to its most literal conclusion.
Notes: The third clause, about worshipping a tree, is not a hypothetical Owomoyela invents; it is part of the proverb text itself, and it makes explicit what the first two clauses imply: worship in this frame is transactional and can attach to whatever delivers results, a stance closely related to entry 13 of file 70 (Owomoyela 3013, the "god that does not listen ends up in the streets").
Source: Owomoyela 899.
Literal: Ẹnu tí ìgbín fi bú òrìṣà the-mouth with-which the-snail insulted the-god ní ń fi ọlọ́ lọ bá a is-the-same-with-which it crawls to-meet it.
Idiomatic: "The same mouth with which the snail insults the god is the one on which it crawls to the god."
Meaning: The offender ends up returning, by the very means used to give offence, to make peace with the offended party.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person who insults a powerful person will in time eat his or her words before the person insulted"
Notes: The image depends on the snail's foot being called its mouth-equivalent in folk description of its locomotion; the same organ that spoke the insult is the organ that must carry the snail back for reconciliation, so the proverb enacts the reversal it describes.
Source: Owomoyela 1541.
Literal: Òbùrẹ́wà ẹni a-person's ugliness, tòrìṣà ni is-the-god's-doing; àìraṣọ̀lò lack-of-clothing, tolúwarẹ̀ ni is-the-person's-own-fault.
Idiomatic: "A person's ugliness is the god's doing; the person's lack of clothing is his or her own fault."
Meaning: Congenital conditions are attributed to divine agency; failures of provision are the individual's own responsibility.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must take responsibility for some conditions, but cannot be blamed for others"
Notes: This proverb draws a working boundary between what the gods are held to determine (bodily form, at the point of creation) and what falls to individual effort (material provision after birth), a distinction with the same shape as entry 14 of file 70 (Owomoyela 3555, on the person with protruding teeth) but framed here as a general rule rather than applied to a single case.
Source: Owomoyela 2233.
Literal: Ta la dòmi sí lára? who is-it-that water was-poured on? Ta lòrìṣà ń gùn? who is-it-that the-god is mounting?
Idiomatic: "Who is the one on whom water was poured? Who is the one being mounted by the god?"
Meaning: The person visibly undergoing an experience cannot disclaim being its subject.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person receiving all the attention cannot pretend not to be the one in need of attention"
Notes: Gùn, to mount, is the ordinary Yorùbá verb for spirit possession, a god mounting a devotee the way a rider mounts a horse; the proverb takes this specific, visible religious event and uses it as the clearest possible image of a condition too obvious to deny. It does not describe possession as ritual instruction; it borrows the image because everyone recognises it.
Source: Owomoyela 2611.
Literal: Ẹni tó bà ọmọ ọlọ́mọ lórí jẹ́ whoever ruins another's-child's lot, òrìṣà inú ilé the-god of-the-hearth-inside-the-house yó bà tirẹ̀ náà jẹ́ will-ruin his-own lot too.
Idiomatic: "Whoever ruins the lot of an innocent person will have his own lot ruined by the god of the hearth."
Meaning: The household deity enforces retribution on behalf of a wronged party, specifically a wronged child.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The gods visit retribution on those who do evil to others"
Notes: Òrìṣà inú ilé, the god within the house, names a domestic guardian deity distinct from the town's public shrines discussed in entry 4, and its jurisdiction here is specifically injuries done to children, which places this proverb close to the household-protection themes of 10-owe-family-lineage-compound.md.
Source: Owomoyela 3185.
Literal: Bí a kò bá rí ohun fún òrìṣà èrò if one has-not found a-thing for the-god of-travelers, a kì í gba torí-i rẹ̀ one does-not take on-account-of-it.
Idiomatic: "If one has nothing to offer the god of travelers, one does not take from him what he has."
Meaning: Reciprocity is a condition of taking, not merely of giving; if you cannot reciprocate, you should not take.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one has nothing to give another person, one should not take what that person has"
Notes: Òrìṣà èrò, a god associated with travelers, is not one of the major pantheon figures treated at length elsewhere in this corpus; the proverb attests a category of deity, protector of a specific human activity, that functioned in ordinary reasoning about reciprocity without needing further elaboration for a Yorùbá hearer.
Source: Owomoyela 3346.
Literal: Abuké the-humpback ló rù ẹrù òrìṣà is-who carries the-god's-load má sọ without-setting-it-down.
Idiomatic: "A humpback carries a god-imposed burden that cannot be laid down."
Meaning: A visible congenital condition is described as a load assigned by the gods, permanent and unshed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Congenital conditions cannot be easily vacated"
Notes: This proverb shares its logic with entry 8: a physical condition present from birth is attributed to divine assignment rather than to any fault or remediable cause, which is consistent with the broader Yorùbá treatment of orí, one's chosen destiny, discussed in 04-cosmology/03-ori.md.
Source: Owomoyela 3632.
Literal: Ikùn the-stomach baba òrìṣà is-father of-the-gods.
Idiomatic: "The stomach is the father of all gods."
Meaning: Bodily need outranks religious obligation in practical urgency.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One can less afford to neglect one's stomach than one's gods" Owomoyela cross-references entry 3911, Òrìṣà bí ìfun ò sí; ojoojúmọ́ ní ń gbẹbọ, "There is no god like the gullet; it receives sacrifices daily," which makes the identical point with the gut standing in for the stomach .
Notes: Naming the stomach "father" of the gods is a deliberately shocking inversion, and its bluntness is the entire rhetorical mechanism; a softer paraphrase would lose the force of ranking a bodily organ above the entire pantheon.
Source: Owomoyela 3806; compare 3911.
Literal: Kò sí òrìṣà there-is-no god tó ju Olóde lọ that exceeds Olóde.
Idiomatic: "There is no god greater than Olóde."
Meaning: A specific feared deity is asserted to be without equal in potency.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Certain forces are more potent than others"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote identifies Olóde, literally "the owner of the outdoors," as a euphemistic designation for Ṣọ̀npọ̀nná, the god associated with smallpox . Using an indirect name for a feared deity rather than the direct one is a documented pattern in Yorùbá religious speech, treated at length in 06-orisa/12-sonponna-obaluaye.md; this proverb is a data point for that pattern rather than a general theological ranking of the pantheon, and it should not be read as claiming Ṣọ̀npọ̀nná outranks Olódùmarè or the whole òrìṣà order.
Source: Owomoyela 4266, with Owomoyela's note 35.
Literal: Kò sí òrìṣà there-is-no god tó lè ṣe that can do bí Ògún lágbẹdẹ like Ògún at-the-smithy.
Idiomatic: "There is no òrìṣà that can do as Ògún, god of metals and the forge, can do at the smithy."
Meaning: Ògún's mastery of ironworking is unrivalled among the gods, and the proverb uses that specific, named competence as its argument.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No one else can attempt the feats that the person referred to can accomplish"
Notes: Unlike the euphemistic reference to Ṣọ̀npọ̀nná in entry 14, Ògún is named directly and by his defining domain, metalwork; see 06-orisa/07-ogun.md for the fuller account of his role as patron of iron, war, and the technologies built from both. The proverb is used generically, about any person unrivalled in a named skill, with Ògún's smithcraft supplying the standard of comparison.
Source: Owomoyela 4267.
Literal: Kí ikú má pa ẹni tí ń dáni lóro may death not kill one-who deprives-one of-needed-things; kí òrìṣà má jẹ́ kí kan ṣe ẹni tí ń ṣe èèyàn níkà may the-gods not allow anything happen-to one-who treats-people wickedly; bó pẹ́ títí orí ẹni a dá ni however long, one's-own-head will vindicate one.
Idiomatic: "May death not take the person who deprives one of the things one needs; may the gods not permit anything to happen to the person who does wicked things to one; sooner or later one's head will vindicate one."
Meaning: One should not seek the death or ruin of a wrongdoer through curse or wish; one's own destiny (orí) will settle the account without such interference.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should let evil people do their evil without seeking revenge; eventually they will reap [what they have sown]"
Notes: This is, unusually among the proverbs collected here, phrased as a prayer-like wish rather than as a statement of fact, and it explicitly counsels against invoking either death or the gods against a wrongdoer, resting the case instead on orí. It sits at the boundary between this file's territory and file 78 (prayer, blessing and curse), and is placed here because its subject is the proper limit of appeal to the gods rather than the mechanics of blessing or cursing as speech acts.
Source: Owomoyela 4565.
Literal: Àlà funfun white cloth, ọ̀rẹ́ òrìṣà friend of-the-gods.
Idiomatic: "White cloth, friend of the gods."
Meaning: White cloth is specifically associated with the gods' favour or domain.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Each occasion has its special requirements"
Notes: The proverb is terse to the point of being closer to an epithet than a full statement, and Owomoyela's usage gloss generalises it well beyond religious cloth use; the association of white cloth with Ọbàtálá and with purity in Yorùbá ritual practice, documented at 06-orisa/04-obatala.md, is the likely background the proverb draws on without stating it.
Source: Owomoyela 4699.
Literal: Arọ the-cripple ni ìdènà òrìṣà is the-gatekeeper of-the-gods.
Idiomatic: "The cripple is the gatekeeper of the gods."
Meaning: A person with a physical disability holds a position of trust close to the gods, framed positively rather than as exclusion.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "The cripple, though handicapped, is the chosen one of the gods"
Notes: This proverb runs counter to a reading that would treat disability purely as misfortune or divine punishment; here it is the basis of a specific honoured role, gatekeeper, at the threshold of sacred space. Read alongside entries 8 and 12, which attribute bodily difference to the gods, this entry shows the attribution is not uniformly framed as deprivation.
Source: Owomoyela 4737. Also attested at .
Literal: Ẹni tí yó pẹ̀gàn òrìṣà whoever would-scorn the-gods ni yó pé àfín kò fín tó is-who-will-say the-albino is-not white-enough; ó fẹ́ kó bọ́ lára ni? does-he want the-skin-to-peel off?
Idiomatic: "It is a person who wishes to scorn the gods who will say that the albino is not bleached enough; would the person prefer that the albino have no skin?"
Meaning: To find fault with something already made as complete as it can be made is really an attack on its maker.
Used when: Used, per the corpus's cross-reference to entry 2653, to rebuke someone who complains about a gift or a person's help despite it already being sufficient .
Notes: The proverb identifies the albino's condition (àfín) as the direct work of the gods, consistent with the account in 06-orisa/04-obatala.md of Ọbàtálá as the fashioner of individual human bodies, including albinism, a doctrinal detail Owomoyela's footnote to a related entry (4269, note 55) makes explicit for that entry's shared image .
Source: Owomoyela 4961.
Literal: Kò sí òrìṣà there-is-no god tí kò ní ìgbọ̀ that has-no bush.
Idiomatic: "There is no òrìṣà that does not have a bush."
Meaning: Every god provides some benefit to those who serve it.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Every god provides some benefit for its worshipers"
Notes: Owomoyela's footnote clarifies that ìgbọ̀, bush, here refers to the medicinal herbs associated with a particular òrìṣà and known to that god's devotees, not to wilderness generally . The proverb is thus a claim about therapeutic knowledge distributed across the pantheon, each òrìṣà the custodian of a distinct body of herbal practice, which connects directly to file 76 on medicine and hidden power.
Source: Owomoyela 3001.
Literal: A kọ́lé bíríkótó we build-a-house modest, a ní kí òrìṣà gbà á we say let-the-god accept-it; bí kò bá gbà á if he does-not accept-it, kó lọ sígbó kó lọ ṣá ẹkọ́ let-him go-to-the-forest to-cut stakes, kó lọ sọ́dàn lọ họ okùn let-him go-to-the-grassland to-pull vines, kó mọ bí agara-á ti ń dáni so-he-may-know how the-effort is.
Idiomatic: "We build a modest shrine and implore the god to accept it; if he does not accept it, let him go into the forest to cut stakes, let him go into the grassland for vines, so that he might appreciate the pains we have taken."
Meaning: A god who is dissatisfied with a modest offering should try building the shrine himself, so as to appreciate the labour behind it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A god must not be too demanding of his worshipers, for if pushed too far they will rebel"
Notes: This is one of the more openly defiant proverbs about the gods in the collection: it does not merely note the limits of what worshipers owe, it imagines telling a dissatisfied god to build his own shrine. It shows that reverence in this proverb tradition coexists with a willingness to state, bluntly, what worshipers consider a fair exchange.
Source: Owomoyela 2991.
Literal: Ọwọ́ ìgbà ẹkọ two-hundred poles ní ń fọwọ́ tilé lend-support to-the-house; ọwọ́ igba alámọ̀ two-hundred lizards ní ń fọwọ́ ti ògiri lend-support to-the-wall; Olú-fọwọ́-tì ni Ṣàngó Chief-lends-support is-Ṣàngó's-name; gbogbo ayé ní ń fọwọ́ ti ọba the-whole-world lends-support to-the-king.
Idiomatic: "Two hundred poles hold up a house; two hundred lizards support a wall with their hands; Chief-lends-support is Ṣango's name; the whole world lends support to the king."
Meaning: Support is distributed and structural: houses, walls, gods, and kings are all held up by many hands, not by their own strength alone.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: used in the context of prayer or incantation to invoke the support of the powers that control the universe .
Notes: Olú-fọwọ́-tì, "Chief-lends-support," is given directly as an appellation of Ṣàngó, placing this proverb among the small number here that use a praise-name rather than the ordinary name for a specific òrìṣà; see 06-orisa/05-sango.md for Ṣàngó's fuller praise-name repertoire. Owomoyela's note that the proverb functions in incantatory contexts is a rare explicit signal, in this corpus, that a text collected as a proverb also has a documented ritual use; the corpus records that use without treating the proverb itself as ritual instruction.
Source: Owomoyela 2999.
Two things distinguish these twenty-two proverbs from the Olódùmarè set in file 70.
The gods are plural and rankable. Entries 2, 14, and 15 all involve comparison among gods or between a god and something else, a mode of argument the Olódùmarè proverbs never use, since nothing is admitted as comparable to the supreme being there. Ranking language is available for òrìṣà precisely because they are many.
Specific gods appear by name or by clearly identifiable euphemism. Ṣàngó (entries 2, 22), Ògún (entry 15), and Ṣọ̀npọ̀nná under the euphemism Olóde (entry 14) are treated as individuals with known domains, in contrast to the interchangeable Olódùmarè and Ọlọ́run of file 70. Where a proverb's meaning depends on the identity of the named or euphemised god, this file states that dependency and cross-references the fuller doctrinal account in 06-orisa/, rather than assuming the god's role can be inferred from the proverb text alone.
06-orisa/01-what-an-orisa-is.md and the individual òrìṣà files cited in the notes above, for the doctrinal and ethnographic account of each deity mentioned.The competing scholarly definitions of òrìṣà, why "god" and "idol" are bad translations, what the numbers 201 and 401 are doing, and how òrìṣà relate to Olódùmarè and to the dead.
Twenty-one Yorùbá proverbs about the Ifá oracle, its priests, and divination, showing how the profession, its discipline, and its authority are talked about in everyday speech.
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.
Forty Yorùbá proverbs on war as an institution, the warrior's obligations, cowardice and boasting, and what battle exposes about a person, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Thirty-two Yorùbá proverbs on the blacksmith and his trade, the forge and its tools, iron as material, and Ògún as the power standing behind the craft, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Fifty Yorùbá proverbs on ọ̀run-àpáàdì, orí and àyànmọ́ (fate and destiny), drawn from Owomoyela's dedicated section "On fate (and reciprocity)," showing destiny as chosen before birth, unappealable, yet compatible with real human effort.