Òwe on Sacrifice, Offering and Exchange with the Unseen

Ẹbọ is sacrifice or offering, the standard mechanism by which Yorùbá religious practice manages the exchange between the human and the unseen; the doctrinal account is at 04-cosmology/10-ebo-and-exchange.md 2. The thirteen proverbs collected here treat ẹbọ as ordinary transactional vocabulary, borrowed for arguments that mostly are not about religion at all: about diligence, about the limits of what any remedy can accomplish, about food and appetite, and about the risk that an offering never reaches its intended recipient. Several proverbs state directly that sacrifice cannot override destiny, a claim developed at greater length among the fate proverbs of file 79 and cross-referenced here rather than repeated.

The proverbs

1. Ẹní rúbọ òrìṣà-á gbọdọ̀ rú ti èèyàn kí ẹbọ-ọ́ tó gbà.

Literal: Ẹní rúbọ òrìṣà whoever offers-a-sacrifice to-a-deity á gbọdọ̀ rú ti èèyàn must also-offer one to-humans kí ẹbọ-ọ́ tó gbà before the-sacrifice is-accepted.

Idiomatic: "Whoever offers a sacrifice to a deity must also offer a sacrifice to humans in order for the sacrifice to be efficacious." 1

Meaning: Satisfying the gods is not enough; human relationships must also be tended, or the whole effort fails.

Used when: Owomoyela: "One can please the gods and yet run afoul of humans" 1

Notes: The proverb makes human goodwill a co-requirement of religious efficacy rather than a separate concern, folding social obligation directly into the logic of sacrifice.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 937.

2. Ẹni tó rúbọ tí kò gba èèwọ̀, bí ẹni tó fi owó ẹbọ ṣòfò ni.

Literal: Ẹni tó rúbọ whoever offers-sacrifice tí kò gba èèwọ̀ who does-not accept/observe the-taboo, bí ẹni tó fi owó ẹbọ ṣòfò ni is-like one-who wasted the-sacrifice-money.

Idiomatic: A person who makes an offering but does not observe the accompanying prohibition is as one who wasted the sacrifice money.

Meaning: An offering carries conditions; ignoring the prohibition that comes with it voids the offering's benefit.

Used when: Used of a person who goes through the outward form of a remedy while ignoring the restriction that makes the remedy work.

Notes: This proverb links sacrifice directly to èèwọ̀, taboo or prohibition, treated at length in file 77, and states plainly that the two are bound together: an offering without observance of its condition is money spent for nothing.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 976.

3. Àjẹ́gbé nigún ń jẹ ẹbọ.

Literal: Àjẹ́gbé eating-without-adverse-effect nigún ń jẹ ẹbọ is-how-the-vulture eats sacrificial-offerings.

Idiomatic: "Eating without adverse effects is the vulture's way of consuming sacrificial offerings." 1

Meaning: Some agents can consume or handle dangerous or forbidden things with impunity, where others could not.

Used when: Owomoyela: "Some people can engage in daring and dangerous behavior with impunity" 1

Notes: The vulture is the ordinary scavenger of exposed sacrificial remains left at shrines or crossroads, and the proverb takes its evident immunity to any consequence, unlike a human who might fear to touch such an offering, as its whole argument.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 1963.

4. Oríta mẹ́ta ò kọ̀ ìnú ẹbọ.

Literal: Oríta mẹ́ta a-crossroads-of-three-paths ò kọ̀ ìnú ẹbọ does-not refuse the-inside-of-a-sacrifice.

Idiomatic: "A crossroads where three roads meet is not afraid of sacrificial offerings." 1

Meaning: A place suited by its nature to receive something does not shrink from receiving it, however weighty or dangerous.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "One does not fear any eventuality" 1

Notes: The crossroads is the standard site for leaving sacrifices to Èṣù, as documented in file 73; this proverb assumes that association as background rather than stating it, evidence of how completely it had become ordinary geography rather than something requiring explanation.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 2314.

5. Sàráà baba ẹbọ.

Literal: Sàráà alms baba ẹbọ father of-sacrifice.

Idiomatic: "Alms are the ultimate sacrifice." 1

Meaning: Giving to the needy outranks formal ritual offering as the highest form of sacrifice.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "It is blessed to give alms" 1

Notes: Sàráà, alms, is a term with Islamic derivation (compare Arabic ṣadaqah), and its pairing here with ẹbọ as the superior form of "sacrifice" is a further instance, alongside file 70's entries 7 and 8, of Islamic-derived vocabulary integrated into proverb argument about religious obligation generally.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 2607.

6. Àfẹ̀rí kan ò ju ká rí igbó ńlá bọ́ sí lọ; ẹbọ kan ò ju ọ̀pọ̀ èèyàn lọ; "Òrìṣá gbé mi lé àtẹ̀tẹ̀" kan ò ju orí ẹṣin lọ.

Literal: Àfẹ̀rí kan ò ju ká rí igbó ńlá bọ́ sí lọ no-disappearing-trick exceeds having a-dense-forest to-vanish-into; ẹbọ kan ò ju ọ̀pọ̀ èèyàn lọ no-sacrifice exceeds having many-people-on-one's-side; "Òrìṣá gbé mi lé àtẹ̀tẹ̀" kan ò ju orí ẹṣin lọ no "the-gods-have-elevated-me" exceeds the-back-of-a-horse.

Idiomatic: "There is no disappearing trick better than the availability of a dense forest to disappear into; there is no sacrifice more efficacious than having many people on one's side; there is no 'The gods have elevated me' that is higher than the back of a horse." 1

Meaning: Practical, material resources outperform mysterious or ritual claims to power.

Used when: Owomoyela: "Practical and realistic moves are more reliable than mysterious expectations" 1

Notes: This is the sharpest statement in the collection of the limits proverb-speech places on sacrifice: the second clause states outright that no ẹbọ is more efficacious than simply having many people on one's side, ranking social capital above ritual expenditure without qualification.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 2622.

7. Bí a kò bá rígún, à fàkàlà ṣẹbọ.

Literal: Bí a kò bá rígún if one cannot-find a-vulture, à fàkàlà ṣẹbọ one uses-a-hornbill to-sacrifice.

Idiomatic: "If one cannot find a vulture, one sacrifices a hornbill." 1

Meaning: One makes do with an available substitute when the preferred material for an offering is not at hand.

Used when: Owomoyela: "One makes do with what one has" 1

Notes: The proverb names two specific birds conventionally used in sacrifice, treating substitution within the category of acceptable offerings as an ordinary, unremarkable practical accommodation rather than a compromise of the offering's validity.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 1406.

8. Akọ́kọ́lúkọ́ ẹbọ ní ń pa igún lẹ́rù.

Literal: Akọ́kọ́lúkọ́ ẹbọ a-veritable-masculine [high-quality] ẹbọ offering ní ń pa igún lẹ́rù is-what weighs-down the-vulture.

Idiomatic: "It is a veritable masculine [high-quality] offering that weighs down the vulture." 1

Meaning: Certain obligations, precisely because of their high quality or weight, become a burden their recipient comes to regret taking on.

Used when: Owomoyela's note: "Certain obligations make one regret taking them on" 1

Notes: Owomoyela's footnote records that this proverb is often found in exclamatory form at an oppressive duty, with the particle ní replaced by tí in that usage [S1, note 13], and that it refers to the vulture's role as the customary consumer of sacrificial remains, here shown overburdened rather than merely fed. Read alongside entry 3, which credits the vulture with total immunity to any adverse effect of eating sacrifice, this entry complicates that picture: the vulture can be defeated by sheer quantity even if not by danger.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 3670, with note 13.

9. Òrìṣà bí ìfun ò sí; ojoojúmọ́ ní ń gbẹbọ.

Literal: Òrìṣà bí ìfun ò sí there-is-no god like the-gut; ojoojúmọ́ ní ń gbẹbọ every-day it receives-sacrifice.

Idiomatic: "There is no god like the gullet; it received sacrifices daily." 1

Meaning: No one can be anything without food; the body's own need for nourishment outranks any formal offering cycle.

Used when: Owomoyela's cross-reference notes the parallel proverb at 3806 (this corpus's file 71, entry 13, "the stomach is father of all gods") 1.

Notes: This proverb states the identical claim as file 71's entry 13 but frames it through the vocabulary of sacrifice specifically, "the gut receives its sacrifice daily," rather than through kinship vocabulary ("father"), which is why it belongs in this file's collection on offering even though its underlying argument duplicates the earlier entry.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 3911; compare 3806.

10. Ọ̀tá ọ̀run ò gba ẹbọ.

Literal: Ọ̀tá ọ̀run an-enemy from-heaven/an-implacable-enemy ò gba ẹbọ does-not accept sacrifice.

Idiomatic: "An implacable enemy does not respond to sacrifices." 1

Meaning: Some hostility is beyond the reach of any offering meant to placate it.

Used when: Owomoyela: "There is nothing one can do to win over a sworn enemy" 1

Notes: This is the clearest statement in the collection of the boundary of ẹbọ's power: it works on gods and on ordinary rivals, per entries elsewhere in this section, but the proverb here names a category of enemy, framed with the vocabulary of heaven or the otherworldly, for whom the whole mechanism fails.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 3948.

11. Ẹnu èèyàn lẹbọ.

Literal: Ẹnu èèyàn people's mouths lẹbọ are-the-sacrifice/thing-to-be-offered-to.

Idiomatic: "People's mouths are the things to offer sacrifices to." 1

Meaning: What people say about a person is a more formidable force than any supernatural threat, and it is what deserves the effort otherwise spent on sacrifice.

Used when: Owomoyela: "One need fear nothing as much as what people say" 1

Notes: Like entry 6, this proverb redirects the entire apparatus of sacrificial thinking toward a purely social object, public speech, which is a recurring move across this file: several of its strongest proverbs use ẹbọ as a unit of comparison specifically in order to say that something else, company, alms, reputation, matters more.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 4072.

12. Bí a kò bá ṣe fún ilẹ̀, a kì í fi ọwọ́ sọ ọ̀.

Literal: Bí a kò bá ṣe fún ilẹ̀ if one has-done nothing for-Earth, a kì í fi ọwọ́ sọ ọ̀ one does-not with hand touch-and-swear-by-it.

Idiomatic: "If one has done nothing for Earth, one does not swear by it." 1

Meaning: One earns the right to invoke a power's authority only by having first honoured it.

Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot expect sustenance where one has not cultivated" 1

Notes: Ilẹ̀, Earth, functions here as a power sworn by and offered to in its own right, distinct from the òrìṣà pantheon; see also file 70's related entry on Earth as witness to oaths (Owomoyela 3008, cited in that file's source list though not reproduced here), and this proverb makes explicit that the right to invoke Earth's authority is conditional on prior tribute to it.

Source: 1 Owomoyela 1407.

13. Ohun tó yẹni ló yẹni; okùn ọrùn ò yẹ adìẹ.

(Withheld from the final count: on review this proverb, Owomoyela 473, concerns fittingness of role generally and does not in fact concern sacrifice or offering; it is recorded here only to show it was checked and excluded, not counted among the twelve verified entries above.)

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A note on the count

Twelve proverbs above carry a full citation and constitute this file's verified collection; the thirteenth position records an excluded candidate rather than a verified entry, following the corpus's rule of showing discards rather than silently padding a count. Several of the strongest entries here (6, 9, 10, 11) converge on a single argument: that the machinery of sacrifice, however real and however governed by its own rules of substitution (entry 7) and condition (entry 2), has a boundary, and that social goods, company, alms, a good name, sit outside and sometimes above that boundary. This is not a claim that sacrifice is worthless; entries 1, 3, 4, 8, and 12 all treat it as a functioning system with its own logic. It is a claim, stated repeatedly enough to be a pattern rather than an outlier, that the system is not the whole of what secures a life.