Òwe on Àsírí: Secrets, Gossip, and Rumour
Fifty-five Yorùbá proverbs on what should not be told, the talebearer who carries news between households, and how secrets and rumours travel and eventually surface.
Àsírí is the ordinary Yorùbá word for a secret, and ìkọ̀kọ̀ names the condition of being hidden or done covertly. This file collects fifty-five proverbs built on those two ideas and their social consequences: what must never be spoken aloud, who can be trusted with a confidence and who cannot, the talebearer who profits from carrying news between compounds, and the recurring claim that nothing kept in secret stays there. Read together, the set describes a society in which speech is understood to travel, in which the household and the elder are the trusted containers for what must not spread, and in which the talebearer is a recognized social type with a settled, unflattering reputation.
The proverbs are given in Owomoyela's texts and translations unless another source is named. Owomoyela's parenthetical usage notes are the basis of the Used when lines; where the wording is his, it is quoted. Anything marked as the compiler's own carries lower confidence.
A note on sources and selection
Owomoyela prints full standard orthography with tone marks, and his texts are reproduced here as printed . Every entry below was checked individually against Owomoyela's text: the candidate pool built by keyword search over the collection contained a substantial number of false positives, mostly proverbs about secret cult societies, initiation ritual, or masquerade groves that use ìkọ̀kọ̀ or awo in a technical religious sense rather than as ordinary social secrecy, and these have been excluded as off-topic for this file even where the keyword matched. A few proverbs about secret wickedness before God cluster tightly around the same idea in near-identical wording; they are kept together rather than thinned, because the repetition is a real feature of the recorded corpus and is noted as such rather than treated as padding.
Two proverbs in this set are explicitly aimed at women (entries 7 and 24, on distrust of women as confidantes) with no equivalent proverb in the set aimed at men. That asymmetry is reported here rather than smoothed over, in keeping with the same caution recorded in owe-iwa-character.
What must not be told
1. Àgádágodo ò finú han ara-a wọn.
Literal: Àgádágodo padlocks ò finú han do-not show-inside ara-a wọn to-each-other.
Idiomatic: "Padlocks do not share their secrets with one another."
Meaning: Even things built for the same purpose, closely alike, do not disclose their workings to each other.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Some secrets one should not divulge to others"
Notes: Fi inú hàn, to show one's inside, is the standard Yorùbá idiom for confiding, and it recurs across this file (see entries 8 to 12). A padlock is an odd choice of image for confiding, since a padlock's whole function is to keep things shut, which is precisely the point: even among objects whose nature is secrecy, nothing passes between them. The proverb argues past the more obvious point that a person should keep a secret and makes the stronger claim that even paired confidants are, at bottom, sealed off from each other.
2. A kì í rídìí òkun; a kì í rídìí ọsà; ọmọoní-gele-gele kì í jẹ́ kí wọ́n rídìí òun.
Literal: A kì í rí ìdí òkun one does-not see the-bottom of-the-ocean; a kì í rídìí ọsà one does-not see the-bottom of-the-lagoon; ọmọoní-gele-gele a-well-bred-woman kì í jẹ́ kí wọ́n rídìí òun does-not allow that they see her bottom.
Idiomatic: "One never sees the bottom of the ocean; no one ever sees the bottom of the lagoon; a well-bred woman will never expose her buttocks to anyone."
Meaning: Some depths are properly never sounded, and a person's most private self belongs in that category.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People should not expose their innermost secrets to all and sundry"
Notes: The proverb builds by accumulation, moving from a genuinely impossible thing (seeing the ocean floor) to a socially enforced impossibility (a decent woman's body), so that the final clause borrows the force of physical impossibility for a matter that is really about propriety. Ọmọoní-gele-gele, literally "the child who owns fine head-tie," names a well turned-out woman by her dress, making the modesty specifically a matter of upbringing rather than shame. Owomoyela's own printed text carries a stray footnote digit at this entry with no corresponding note recovered in the material consulted here; the text itself is unaffected.
3. Inú ẹni lorúkọ tí a ó sọ ọmọ ẹni ńgbé.
Literal: Inú ẹni inside one lorúkọ is-where-the-name tí a ó sọ ọmọ ẹni that we-will name our child ńgbé resides.
Idiomatic: "It is inside oneself that the name one will name one's child resides."
Meaning: A decision not yet announced belongs entirely to the person who has made it, and stays there until they choose to release it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should not broadcast one's secrets to the whole world"
Notes: Yorùbá naming is a real ritual event with its own occasion, so the proverb's image is not arbitrary: a name genuinely is decided in private and held until the naming ceremony gives it a public moment. The proverb generalizes from that one well-understood practice to secrets of any kind, using a case every listener has direct experience of.
4. Ohun tí a ò fẹ́ kéèyàn ó mọ̀ là ńṣe lábẹ́lẹ.
Literal: Ohun tí a ò fẹ́ the-thing that we do-not want kéèyàn ó mọ̀ that-a-person should know là ńṣe is-what we-do lábẹ́lẹ in-private.
Idiomatic: "It is what one wishes to keep a secret that one does in private."
Meaning: Concealment marks a thing as shameful. Doing something privately identifies the doer, to any observer, as someone who already knows it will not bear scrutiny.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One who has nothing to hide should not do things in secret"
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note reverses the polarity of his own translation in a useful way: the translation describes what privacy indicates, and the note turns that description into an instruction, that innocent action should default to the open. The proverb is descriptive rather than accusatory on its face, but it is regularly deployed as an accusation, since choosing privacy for an act supplies the evidence against oneself.
5. Ọ̀kánkán là ńṣe ìbí; ìkọ̀kọ̀ là ńṣe ìmùlẹ̀; bí a tọ́jú ìmùlẹ̀ tán, ká tọ́jú ìbí pẹ̀lú; bí a bá kú ará ẹni ní ńsinni.
Literal: Ọ̀kánkán là ńṣe ìbí forthrightness is-how we-conduct kinship; ìkọ̀kọ̀ là ńṣe ìmùlẹ̀ secrecy is-how we-conduct covenant; bí a tọ́jú ìmùlẹ̀ tán once we-have-attended-to the-covenant, ká tọ́jú ìbí pẹ̀lú let-us attend-to kinship also; bí a bá kú if we die, ará ẹni ní ńsinni one's own-people are-who bury one.
Idiomatic: "One conducts affairs with one's kin with forthrightness; one enters into covenants [with nonrelatives] in secret; as one attends to one's secret compacts, one should also attend to affairs with one's kin; on the day one dies, it is one's kin who attend to the funeral."
Meaning: Secret alliances have their place, but they must never crowd out the open, unhidden duty owed to kin, because it is kin, not confederates, who will be there at the end.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never neglect your relatives in favor of others"
Notes: The proverb is the clearest statement in this file of the boundary Yorùbá social thought draws between the two registers of relationship: ìbí, blood kinship, is conducted in the open, while ìmùlẹ̀, a sworn covenant between people who are not kin, belongs in secret. That the covenant is granted its own legitimate secrecy, rather than condemned outright, distinguishes this proverb from the ones later in this file that treat secrecy itself as suspect; here the secrecy is proper to the relationship's kind, and the warning is only against letting it eclipse the relationship that is not supposed to need concealment.
6. Oníkálukú, a-bèèmọ̀-nílé.
Literal: Oníkálukú everyone, a-bèèmọ̀-nílé one-who-has-an-unmentionable-thing-at-home.
Idiomatic: "Everybody [is] someone who has something unmentionable at home."
Meaning: Every household, without exception, is concealing something.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everyone is hiding some secret"
Notes: A-bèèmọ̀-nílé is a single compound epithet, "the-one-with-an-unspeakable-thing-at-home," built the way Yorùbá regularly turns a whole clause into a title (compare oníṣe, oníwà elsewhere in this corpus). Compressing the claim into a title rather than a sentence gives it the weight of an established social category rather than an observation about one particular family, which is the proverb's real force: it is not gossip about a specific house, it is a claim about all houses.
7. Òmùgọ̀ èèyàn ní ḿbóbìnrin mulẹ̀; ọjọ́ tóbìnrín bá mawo lawó bàjẹ.
Literal: Òmùgọ̀ èèyàn a-foolish person ní ḿbóbìnrin mulẹ̀ is-who enters-a-covenant with-a-woman; ọjọ́ tóbìnrín bá mawo the-day a-woman comes-to-know a-cult-mystery lawó bàjẹ is-when the-mystery is-ruined.
Idiomatic: "Only a foolish person enters into a secret pact with a woman; the day a woman knows a cult mystery is the day it is exploded."
Meaning: A secret shared with a woman is treated, in this proverb, as a secret already lost.
Used when: Owomoyela's own gloss is blunt: "Never trust a woman"
Notes: This is the harshest of the file's proverbs about women and secrecy, and it draws directly on the institution of the initiated men's cult society (awo), where knowledge is formally restricted and its loss carries real social cost. The proverb is included here, with the harshness left visible rather than softened, because the corpus's proverbs about gossip and secrecy assign the danger to women with a consistency this file is obliged to report rather than obscure; see also entry 24.
The confidant who cannot be trusted
8. A kì í sọrọ ìkọ̀kọ̀ lójú olófòófó.
Literal: A kì í sọrọ ìkọ̀kọ̀ one does-not speak secret-matters lójú olófòófó in-the-presence-of a-tattler.
Idiomatic: "One does not discuss secret matters in the presence of a tattler."
Meaning: Confidential speech requires screening the audience, not just choosing careful words.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Be careful with your secrets"
Notes: Olófòófó is the standing Yorùbá noun for a habitual tattler or tale-carrier, formed on the ideophone fòófó that also gives ẹyẹ olófòófó, a name for gossiping birds in folktale. It names a recognized social type rather than describing a single act of indiscretion, and it recurs through this file (entries 9, 16, 17) as the fixed figure the whole secrets-and-gossip vocabulary organizes around.
9. A-bayé-jẹ́ kò ṣéé fìdí ọ̀ràn hàn.
Literal: A-bayé-jẹ́ one-who-consumes-the-world-with, i.e. a-treacherous-person, kò ṣéé fìdí ọ̀ràn hàn is-not one-to reveal the-root of-a-matter to.
Idiomatic: "A treacherous person is not someone to tell profound matters to."
Meaning: Character screens confidants before circumstance does; a person already known for treachery disqualifies himself from ever being trusted with anything serious.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should keep one's secrets from treacherous people"
Notes: A-bayé-jẹ́, literally "one who eats along with the world," is an idiom for a person who preys on everyone indiscriminately, using the world itself as their meal. Fìdí ọ̀ràn hàn, to show the base or root of a matter, treats a secret as something with a hidden foundation, distinct from fi inú hàn (entry 1), which images the self as a container. The two idioms for confiding, container and root, recur through the file without ever converging on one metaphor, which is itself notable: Yorùbá does not settle on a single picture of what a secret is.
10. Ẹni à bá fẹ̀hìntìí jẹ́ ẹlẹ́gùn-ún; ẹni à bá finú hàn-án jẹ́ aláròkiri.
Literal: Ẹni à bá fẹ̀hìntìí the-one we-would lean-back-against jẹ́ ẹlẹ́gùn-ún turns-out-to-be a-thorny-one; ẹni à bá finú hàn-án the-one we-would show-inside-to jẹ́ aláròkiri turns-out-to-be a-gossip.
Idiomatic: "The person one would lean on turns out to be thorny; the person one would confide in turns out to be a blabbermouth."
Meaning: The people positioned to offer support and confidence are exactly the ones found unreliable when tested.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There are few people one can really trust"
Notes: Aláròkiri is the noun for someone who carries and spreads gossip, built on ìròkiri, tale-carrying, and distinct from olófòófó (entry 8) though the two are near-synonyms in practice; a collection that keeps both terms visible preserves a vocabulary distinction that a single English word like "gossip" collapses. The parallel structure, physical support failing in one clause and emotional support failing in the next, makes the disappointment feel doubled rather than merely repeated.
11. Ẹni tí à bá finú hàn ní ńṣe elénìní ẹni.
Literal: Ẹni tí à bá finú hàn the-one whom we-would confide-in ní ńṣe elénìní ẹni is-who acts-as the-adversary of-one.
Idiomatic: "The person in whom one would confide is the author of one's ruin."
Meaning: The very act of choosing someone as a confidant identifies, in this proverb's cynical arithmetic, the person likeliest to do the confider harm.
Used when: Owomoyela: "There is hardly anyone a person can confidently trust"
Notes: Elénìní, an adversary or the source of one's misfortune, is a stronger word than "betrayer": it names the person as the origin of one's ruin outright, not merely as someone who let a secret slip. Set beside entry 10, which reaches a similar conclusion through the vivid double image of a thorny support and a blabbing confidant, this proverb states the same distrust as flat doctrine, with no image at all, which suggests the sentiment was current enough to need no figure to carry it.
12. Aṣòroófinúhàn bí èké.
Literal: Aṣòro-ó-fi-inú-hàn difficult-one-to-show-one's-inside-to bí èké like a-deceiver.
Idiomatic: "Difficult-to-confide-in like an unreliable person."
Meaning: An untrustworthy person is, by definition, someone confidences cannot safely reach.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An untrue friend is not one to confide in"
Notes: The whole proverb is a single coined epithet rather than a sentence, built the way a-bèèmọ̀-nílé (entry 6) is built, and it is short enough to function as a label applied to a specific person in conversation, "he is an aṣòroófinúhàn," rather than as a generalization recited about people in the abstract. Èké is a stock Yorùbá term for a false or two-faced person and appears across the wider proverb corpus as the fixed opposite of a trustworthy friend.
13. A kì í sọ̀rọ̀ orí bíbẹ́ lójú ọmọdé; lọ́rùnlọ́rùn ni yó máa wo olúwa-a rẹ̀.
Literal: A kì í sọ̀rọ̀ orí bíbẹ́ one does-not discuss head being-cut lójú ọmọdé in-the-presence-of a-child; lọ́rùnlọ́rùn at-the-neck, at-the-neck ni yó máa wo olúwa-a rẹ̀ is-how he-will keep-looking at its owner.
Idiomatic: "One does not speak of a beheading in the presence of a child; otherwise, his gaze will be fixated on the neck of the person concerned."
Meaning: Some people cannot hear a secret without their own behavior giving it away, so the secret must be kept even from the room, not merely worded carefully within it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never discuss a secret in the hearing of a person whose behavior will give the secret away"
Notes: The proverb's image is unusually vivid and specific among this set: a child who has heard talk of an execution cannot stop staring at the intended victim's neck, and that stare is what exposes the secret, not any word spoken. It broadens the file's concern about untrustworthy confidants (entries 8 to 12) to include people who are not malicious at all, only transparent, which is a distinct failure mode the other proverbs in this section do not cover.
14. Ẹni a bíni bí ńdani, á-ḿ-bọ̀-ǹ-tórí ọ̀rẹ́.
Literal: Ẹni a bíni bí the-one born together-with one ńdani betrays-one, á-ḿ-bọ̀-ǹ-tórí ọ̀rẹ́ how-much-more concerning a-friend.
Idiomatic: "The person born of the same parents with one might betray one, let alone one's friends."
Meaning: If even a sibling can betray a confidence, no relationship of lesser closeness offers any real assurance.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Trust no one, neither relatives nor friends"
Notes: The a fortiori construction, "if even X, how much more Y," argues from the strongest available case of trust (a full sibling) to the weaker case (a friend). It is the single most extreme statement of distrust in this file, since it withdraws confidence even from blood kin, in some tension with entry 5's claim that kin are owed forthright, undefended dealing.
15. Bí a bá rí ọlọ́rọ̀ ẹni, ṣọ̀rọ̀-ṣọ̀rọ̀ là ńdà.
Literal: Bí a bá rí ọlọ́rọ̀ ẹni if we see one's confidant, ṣọ̀rọ̀-ṣọ̀rọ̀ là ńdà speech-upon-speech is-how we-pour.
Idiomatic: "When one sees one's confidant, one runs at the mouth like a spout."
Meaning: In the presence of the one person trusted with everything, restraint simply drops away.
Used when: Owomoyela: "In the right company, one is uninhibited"
Notes: Ọlọ́rọ̀ here is not "a wealthy person," its more common sense, but "owner of speech," the one to whom speech properly belongs, that is, a genuine confidant; the pun with the wealth sense is present but not the point. This is the one proverb in the file that describes trust succeeding rather than failing, and it is placed here deliberately, at the close of a run of proverbs about confidants who disappoint, as the standard the others are measured against.
16. Ọbẹ̀ kì í gbé inú àgbà mì.
Literal: Ọbẹ̀ stew kì í gbé does-not lift inú àgbà inside an-elder mì and-swallow, i.e. does-not slosh-around inside an elder.
Idiomatic: "A stew does not slosh around once inside an elder."
Meaning: An elder holds what has been swallowed, in speech as in food; nothing confided sloshes back out of them under ordinary agitation.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An elder should know how to keep confidences"
Notes: The digestive image is doing precise work: food that has genuinely been swallowed and settled does not move when the body moves, unlike food still being chewed, and the proverb credits the elder with having fully digested, rather than merely holding, what they have been told. It is the one proverb in this section that names a category of person expected to pass the test the others fail, which matches the corpus-wide pattern of treating elders as the trusted repositories of what must not spread; compare owe-iwa-character on the household, rather than any individual, as the site of moral formation.
The gossip, the talebearer, and the rumour
17. Sọ̀rọ̀ kí ọlọ́rọ̀ gbọ́, àbùkù ní ńfi kanni.
Literal: Sọ̀rọ̀ kí ọlọ́rọ̀ gbọ́ speak that its-owner may-hear, i.e. gossip so the subject hears it, àbùkù ní ńfi kanni is-what brings blemish upon one.
Idiomatic: "Spreading rumors into the ears of the subject of the rumor brings disgrace to the speaker."
Meaning: Talk that reaches the person it was about damages the reputation of the one who spread it, not only the one it concerned.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should refrain from rumormongering"
Notes: Ọlọ́rọ̀ here plays the same double sense noted at entry 15, owner of the matter, and the proverb's point turns on that ownership: talk about a person is, in this framing, that person's property, and letting it circulate back to its owner is what exposes the talker as having trespassed on it. The disgrace named in the proverb falls entirely on the talebearer, not on the target, which is characteristic of how this whole section treats gossip as primarily a failure of the gossip, not an injury inflicted from outside.
18. Bí a bá sọ̀rọ̀ fún olófòófó, ajádìí agbọ̀n la sọ ọ́ sí.
Literal: Bí a bá sọ̀rọ̀ fún olófòófó if we speak a-matter to a-tattler, ajádìí agbọ̀n a-basket-with-a-hole-in-its-bottom la sọ ọ́ sí is-what we spoke it into.
Idiomatic: "Whatever one says to a talebearer one says to a basket that has lost its bottom."
Meaning: A talebearer holds nothing; what goes in falls straight through, so telling them anything is functionally the same as announcing it publicly.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Words whispered to a talebearer are in effect broadcast"
Notes: A basket without a bottom is a container that fails at the one thing a container is for, and the image makes the point sharper than a simple accusation of unreliability would: the talebearer is not merely likely to leak the secret, they are structurally incapable of holding anything at all. Read against entry 16's stew that does not slosh inside an elder, the two proverbs form a matched pair of container-images, the sound container and the broken one, standing for the two possible outcomes of confiding.
19. Olófòófó ò gbẹ́gbàá; ibi ọpẹ́ ní ḿmọ.
Literal: Olófòófó the-tattler ò gbẹ́gbàá does-not earn six-pence; ibi ọpẹ́ the-place of-thanks ní ḿmọ is-what he-knows.
Idiomatic: "The tattler does not earn six pence; thanks are all he gets."
Meaning: Tattling is not even a profitable vice. Its only reward is a thin, transactional gratitude that is not worth the reputation spent earning it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Tattling is not a profitable or appreciated habit"
Notes: Gbàá, six pence, is a colonial-era coin denomination, which places this particular wording of the proverb no earlier than the introduction of British currency, though the underlying sentiment about talebearers is almost certainly older. The proverb's argument is pointedly economic rather than moral: it does not say tattling is wrong, it says tattling is a bad trade, which is a different and in some ways more cutting form of contempt.
20. Túlùú-túlùú, ẹyẹ Eléḿpe.
Literal: Túlùú-túlùú town-scattering, town-scattering (ideophone), ẹyẹ Eléḿpe the-bird of-Elémpe.
Idiomatic: "Town disperser, the Elémpe bird."
Meaning: A named bird, known in the oral tradition as a disperser of communities, stands for the person whose gossip breaks a town apart.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person who carries rumors from people to people will cause dissension in the community"
Notes: Túlùú-túlùú is an ideophone, a sound-word imitating the effect it names, here something like a scattering or dispersing motion, and reduplicating it intensifies the action into a constant, repeated scattering rather than a single event. This is the only proverb in the file to give the talebearer an animal identity with a proper name attached (Elémpe), which suggests it draws on a specific, now only partly recoverable, piece of oral narrative about the bird; the proverb functions as a fragment of a fuller story whose details are lost.
21. A rìn fàà lójú akẹ́gàn; a yan kàṣà lójú abúni; abúni ò ní okòó nílé.
Literal: A rìn fàà one walks nonchalantly lójú akẹ́gàn before a-scorner; a yan kàṣà one struts proudly lójú abúni before a-slanderer; abúni the-slanderer ò ní okòó nílé has-not one-cowrie at-home.
Idiomatic: "One strolls nonchalantly before a detractor; one struts proudly before a slanderer; the slanderer has not cowries at home."
Meaning: A slanderer's talk carries no real capital behind it, so the proper response to being maligned is unconcealed indifference, displayed openly rather than merely felt.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One need not pay a worthless detractor any mind"
Notes: Akẹ́gàn and abúni, scorner and slanderer, are treated as near-synonyms across the two parallel clauses, and the closing image, that the slanderer is penniless, converts moral worthlessness into literal poverty, using wealth as the register in which the person's lack of standing is finally measured. The cowrie reference dates at least this wording to the pre-colonial or early colonial cowrie-currency period, the same marker noted for entry 15 of owe-iwa-character.
22. Ojú abanijẹ́ pọ́n, kò lè tan fìtílà.
Literal: Ojú abanijẹ́ the-eyes of-a-detractor pọ́n are-red, kò lè tan fìtílà it-cannot light a-lamp.
Idiomatic: "The detractor's eyes glow red, but they cannot light a lamp."
Meaning: The detractor's malice produces heat and show but no genuine power to cause harm.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A detractor's slanderous efforts are in vain"
Notes: Red, inflamed eyes are a stock Yorùbá sign of anger or malevolent intent, and the proverb's wit lies in taking that sign at face value and then denying it any further consequence, glowing like fire yet unable to perform fire's simplest function. Abanijẹ́, the detractor, is built on the same verb ba ... jẹ́, to spoil, that produces abanijẹ́ in entry 31 of owe-iwa-character, "a detractor injures his own reputation," and the two proverbs make complementary claims: that file's entry says detraction damages the detractor, this one says it fails to damage the target.
23. Obìnrín torí ọ̀rọ̀ rodò.
Literal: Obìnrín women torí ọ̀rọ̀ because-of talk rodò go-to-the-river.
Idiomatic: "Women go to the stream only in search of gossip."
Meaning: The proverb assigns a domestic errand, fetching water, a secondary and less flattering motive: the real purpose of the trip is to trade news.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Women will do anything for the opportunity to gossip"
Notes: The riverside or stream was a genuine site of women's daily labor and, in consequence, of women's daily unsupervised conversation, which is the real social fact the proverb is exploiting and then treating with suspicion. Set beside entry 24, this is the second of the two proverbs in the file that single out women specifically as agents of gossip and unreliable confidantes, and the pairing is reported rather than defended.
24. Obìnrin ò ṣéé finú hàn.
Literal: Obìnrin a-woman ò ṣéé finú hàn is-not one-to show-inside-to.
Idiomatic: "A woman is not suitable to expose one's secrets to."
Meaning: The proverb states, flatly, that women are unfit recipients of confidence.
Used when: Owomoyela's gloss states the generalization outright: "Women cannot be relied on"
Notes: This uses the same fi inú hàn idiom for confiding found in entries 1, 9 to 12, but narrows the whole class of untrustworthy confidants down to a single sex; nothing in the sentence explains why, and the proverb offers no image or story, only assertion, which is unusual for this file and makes it read as a bare social rule rather than an observed pattern. Alongside entry 7, it forms the file's clearest evidence of a gendered asymmetry in the recorded proverb corpus, matching the pattern already documented for the character proverbs in owe-iwa-character.
25. Yọyọ lẹnu ayé ńdà.
Literal: Yọyọ pouring-forth, unceasingly (ideophone) lẹnu ayé is-at-the-mouth of-the-world ńdà is-pouring.
Idiomatic: "The world runs endlessly at the mouth."
Meaning: Talk about other people's business is not the failing of any one talebearer but a constant background condition of the world itself.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People can be relied upon to spread tales irresponsibly about others"
Notes: Ayé, the world, functions here the way aráyé, the people of the world, functions in entry 38 of owe-iwa-character, as the diffuse, unlocatable social agency that produces gossip, blame, and misfortune without any single accountable source. Naming the mouth of the world, rather than any tattler by name, moves the claim from a warning about particular untrustworthy people (entries 8 to 24) to a claim about the ambient condition every secret is released into.
26. Àṣírí ẹ̀kọ kì í tú lójú ewé.
Literal: Àṣírí ẹ̀kọ the-secret of-corn-meal kì í tú does-not come-undone lójú ewé in-the-presence-of leaves.
Idiomatic: "The secrets of corn meal's being will not be exposed in the presence of leaves."
Meaning: As long as the wrapping that conceals a thing is present and intact, its contents stay hidden; a secret survives so long as its cover does.
Used when: Owomoyela: "As long as one has champions, one will not be disgraced"
Notes: Ẹ̀kọ, a cooked corn-starch pudding, is traditionally wrapped and sold in leaves, so the image is drawn from an ordinary market good rather than an abstraction: unwrap the leaves and the ẹ̀kọ is visible, but the leaves themselves guard it. Owomoyela's gloss shifts the image from concealment to social backing, reading the leaves as protectors or champions rather than as mere covering, which is a real interpretive move worth flagging: the literal Yorùbá is about the mechanics of concealment, and the usage note supplies the social application.
27. Àwúyẹ́wúyẹ́, àròyé ọ̀tẹ̀; wọ́n ní kí wọ́n tún ìlú ṣe, wọ́n fẹ́ẹ́ tú ìlú.
Literal: Àwúyẹ́wúyẹ́ clandestine-whispering (ideophone-derived), àròyé ọ̀tẹ̀ the-murmured-complaint of-plotting; wọ́n ní kí wọ́n tún ìlú ṣe they were-told that they should fix the-town, wọ́n fẹ́ẹ́ tú ìlú they wanted to unmake the-town instead.
Idiomatic: "Clandestine whispering, the devious conversation of plotting; they were urged to improve conditions in the town, but they would rather destroy it."
Meaning: Whispered, secretive talk among a faction is identified here not with private gossip about individuals but with conspiracy against the whole community, and the proverb condemns the choice to destroy rather than to mend.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Clandestine plotters would rather engage in secret designs to ruin the community than work for its improvement"
Notes: Àwúyẹ́wúyẹ́ is built from reduplication and carries the texture of low, continuous murmuring, distinct from the louder ideophone túlùú-túlùú in entry 20, and the difference in sound between the two matches a difference in scale: entry 20 is one bird scattering news across a whole town, this proverb is a small group murmuring among themselves. This is the one proverb in the section where secrecy serves outright sedition rather than personal malice, extending the file's concern from gossip about persons to conspiracy against the polity.
28. Ará okó ní òún gbọ́ fínrín fínrín; ta ló sọ fun bí kò ṣe ará ilé.
Literal: Ará okó a-person-of-the-farm ní òún gbọ́ fínrín fínrín says he heard a-faint-rumor (ideophone for indistinct sound), ta ló sọ fun who told him, bí kò ṣe ará ilé if not a-person-of-the-town.
Idiomatic: "The bush dweller says he heard a rumor; who told him, if it was not a town dweller?"
Meaning: A rumour claimed as overheard by an outsider always has an insider as its true source, since the outsider has no independent access to the news.
Used when: Owomoyela: "People should not presume to instruct those who know better than they"
Notes: Fínrín fínrín is an ideophone for a faint or indistinct sound, so the bush dweller's claim is already marked as unreliable in its own wording, a rumor about a rumor. Owomoyela's usage note reads the proverb as being about presumption and false authority rather than about the mechanics of rumor transmission, which is a real available second reading; both are plausible given the bare text, and the proverb is included here on the strength of its surface content, which is squarely about tracing a rumor's true origin.
29. Ọ̀rọ̀ tí ọlọgbọ́n bá sọ, ẹnu aṣiwèrè la ti ńgbọ́ ọ.
Literal: Ọ̀rọ̀ tí ọlọgbọ́n bá sọ the-matter that a-wise-person speaks, ẹnu aṣiwèrè the-mouth of-a-fool la ti ńgbọ́ ọ is-where one comes-to-hear it.
Idiomatic: "Whatever a wise man says will be heard repeated by the nitwit."
Meaning: Careful, considered speech from a reliable source does not stay as it was said; by the time it reaches a listener secondhand, it has passed through a careless mouth and come out changed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Rumormongers always distort the news they hear from reliable sources"
Notes: The structure pointedly separates the origin of a statement from the channel that carries it: what is said and who ends up saying it are two different things, and the proverb's whole argument is that the gap between them is where distortion happens. It is a precise, almost technical statement of a real transmission problem and reads less like folk wisdom about fools than like an observation about how information degrades as it changes hands.
How secrets escape
30. Òdú kì í ṣe àìmọ̀ olóko.
Literal: Òdú the-òdú-vegetable kì í ṣe àìmọ̀ olóko is-not a-thing-unknown to-the-farmer.
Idiomatic: "The òdú vegetable is not something the farmer does not know."
Meaning: A thing presented as hidden or surprising is, to the person closest to it, no secret at all.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An indication that a matter under discussion is not such a secret after all"
Notes: Òdú is a leaf vegetable grown as part of the ordinary farm crop, so the image trades on the fact that a farmer necessarily knows every plant growing on his own land; treating it as a hidden discovery would be absurd on its face. The proverb is used to puncture a claim of secrecy, not to describe how secrets behave once released, which sets it apart from most of the entries in this section and makes it a natural opening: it questions whether a given "secret" was ever really one.
31. Àáyá kan-án bẹ̀ ọ́ wò; igba wọ́n ti rí ọ.
Literal: Àáyá kan-án one colobus-monkey bẹ̀ ọ́ wò peeps and-sees-you, igba wọ́n ti rí ọ two-hundred of-them have already seen-you.
Idiomatic: "If a single colobus monkey sees you, be sure that two hundred of them have seen you."
Meaning: Once a fact has become known to a single member of a close-knit group, it should be treated as already known to the whole group.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A secret disclosed to one person is as good as published for all"
Notes: Ìgba, two hundred, is the same round large number used idiomatically in entry 49 of owe-iwa-character; here it stands specifically for the troop of monkeys, whose members are assumed to move and communicate together, so seeing by one is functionally seeing by all. The proverb makes a sharper claim than mere carelessness: it is not that the secret might leak from the first monkey to the rest, but that in a genuinely social group there was never a meaningful gap between the one and the many to begin with.
32. Bí òru bí òru ní ńṣe aláṣọdúdú.
Literal: Bí òru bí òru longing-for-night, longing-for-night ní ńṣe aláṣọdúdú is-the-way-of the-one-in-dark-clothing.
Idiomatic: "Longing for nighttime, longing for nighttime is the tendency of the person in dark clothing."
Meaning: Someone engaged in secret business develops a settled preference for darkness and concealment as a habit of temperament, not just as a tactic for one occasion.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person engaged in secret business is always secretive"
Notes: Aláṣọdúdú, the one clothed in black or dark cloth, is a figure of concealment chosen for the occasion, dressing to disappear into the night rather than to be seen, and the reduplicated "longing for night, longing for night" turns a single act of dressing for cover into a recurring craving. The proverb describes secrecy as a character trait that gives itself away by its own consistency, which anticipates entry 37 below, where a habitual, involuntary symptom is what makes a concealed condition legible.
33. Gbogbo wa la fòkété san ọgọ́fà; ìgbà tí òkété ó fi di ogóje, ojú-u gbogbo wa ni yó ṣe.
Literal: Gbogbo wa all of-us la fòkété san ọgọ́fà is-how we-set the-bush-rat's-price-at forty-cowries; ìgbà tí òkété ó fi di ogóje the-time when the-bush-rat-price comes-to-be one-hundred-and-forty, ojú-u gbogbo wa the-eyes of-all-of-us ni yó ṣe is-what-it-will-concern.
Idiomatic: "We all agreed on cowries as the value of the bush rat; when the value changes to 140, we must all know about it."
Meaning: A decision reached collectively cannot be altered by any part of the group acting alone and in secret; a change binding on everyone requires the same open agreement the original decision had.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No subgroup has the right to alter in secret the decisions the whole group has arrived at"
Notes: The specific cowrie figures, an initial price and a later, much higher one, root the proverb in market-price negotiation, almost certainly the setting of a trade guild or a market association fixing a common rate. It is the only proverb in this file about secrecy as a violation of a collective process rather than of a personal confidence, extending the concern with hidden dealing from individuals and pairs to organized economic life.
34. Kò jọ agbe kò jọ olè tí ńsúfèé yàgbàdo; bí kò bá bá mi a di olè; bó bá bá mi a di onílé.
Literal: Kò jọ agbe it-does-not resemble begging kò jọ olè it-does-not resemble theft tí ńsúfèé yàgbàdo who whistles harvesting-corn; bí kò bá bá mi if he does-not encounter me, a di olè it becomes theft; bó bá bá mi if he does encounter me, a di onílé it becomes a-household-member's-act.
Idiomatic: "It-is-not-begging-and-it-is-not-stealing who whistles as he harvests corn ears: if he does not come upon me, it becomes stealing; if he comes upon me, it becomes [the action of] a member of the household."
Meaning: The very same act of quietly taking corn from a relative's farm is classified as either theft or ordinary family privilege depending entirely on whether the owner catches him at it: secrecy is what converts an otherwise legitimate claim into a crime.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said of a person who secretively takes something from a relative instead of asking openly for it"
Notes: The whistling detail is exact: a person with nothing to hide announces his presence by sound as he moves through the farm, while a person avoiding detection would not, so the proverb builds its own evidence of intent into the description of the act itself. The proverb's real subject is not theft as such but the difference between asking and taking without asking; a family member entitled to the corn forfeits that entitlement's innocent character the moment he chooses concealment over the open request that was available to him.
35. Ọ̀rọ̀ ìkọ̀kọ̀, ní gba-n-gba ní ḿbọ.
Literal: Ọ̀rọ̀ ìkọ̀kọ̀ a-secret matter, ní gba-n-gba in-the-open ní ḿbọ̀ is-where-it-is-coming.
Idiomatic: "Secret matters have open exposure as their ultimate destination."
Meaning: Secrecy is not a permanent state but a temporary one, on its way, structurally, to disclosure.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whatever is done in secret will eventually be brought to light"
Notes: Gba-n-gba is an ideophone-derived word for wide-open, unobstructed space, the same root used in entries 42 and 48 below, and pairing it directly against ìkọ̀kọ̀ in a four-word sentence gives the proverb the same terse, aphoristic compression seen in Ìwà lẹwà (entry 1 of owe-iwa-character). This is arguably the single proverb that best summarizes the whole file's governing claim, and it is placed at the structural center of this section because the entries on either side of it, on things that give secrets away and things that eventually surface, are all instances of the general law it states directly.
36. Òde là ńṣàgbà, ilé kan bí ìbó; bó pẹ́ títí, àtilé àtòde ní ḿbọ̀ wáá kàn.
Literal: Òde là ńṣàgbà outside is-where we-act-the-elder, ilé kan bí ìbó while home is bitter like the-ìbó-plant; bó pẹ́ títí however-long it takes, àtilé àtòde both-home and-outside ní ḿbọ̀ wáá kàn is-what-comes to eventually be-affected.
Idiomatic: "When one is abroad, one acts the venerable sage, even though one's homestead is as sour as the sap of the ìbó plant; but sooner or later both the homestead and the outside become sour."
Meaning: A dignified public face and a troubled or shameful private household can be kept apart for a while, but not indefinitely; the concealed trouble eventually reaches the public reputation too.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot conceal one's secret shame forever"
Notes: Ìbó names a plant whose sap is proverbially bitter, giving the proverb a concrete taste-image for private trouble that contrasts with the visual and auditory images used elsewhere in this section (the echo of entry 43, the visible corpse of entry 41). The proverb concerns a specific and recognizable social situation, the person who is impressive away from home and diminished within it, rather than secrecy or gossip in general, and it is the clearest statement in the file of the gap between public reputation and private household condition.
37. À-tọ̀-ìṣíwọ́ là ḿ-mòkóbó.
Literal: À-tọ̀-ìṣíwọ́ the-urinating-without-stopping-nominal là ḿmòkóbó is-what betrays a-eunuch.
Idiomatic: "Urinating-without-ceasing is what betrays the eunuch."
Meaning: A concealed physical condition is given away by an involuntary bodily symptom that the person cannot control or disguise, however carefully everything else about them is managed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's secret flaws have ways of making themselves public"
Notes: The proverb picks the frankest possible case, a bodily condition someone would have the strongest motive to hide and the least ability to fully conceal, to make the general point as forcefully as it can be made. It belongs with entry 32 as one of the file's proverbs about secrecy leaking not through another person's talk but through the secret-keeper's own uncontrolled behavior, a distinct mechanism from gossip or betrayal.
38. Ó di ọjọ́ tí aláró bá kú ká tó mọ oye aṣọ tó gbà á.
Literal: Ó di ọjọ́ tí aláró bá kú it becomes the-day that the-dyer dies ká tó mọ oye aṣọ before we-come-to-know the-number of-cloths tó gbà á that she-took-in.
Idiomatic: "It is on the day of the dyer's death that one knows how many pieces of cloth she had taken in to dye."
Meaning: Some accountings only become visible once the person who alone held the full picture is gone; death forces a disclosure that living discretion had prevented.
Used when: Owomoyela: "When one dies, one's every secret becomes public knowledge"
Notes: Indigo-dyeing (aláró, the dyer, from aró, indigo dye) was a real trade in which a dyer held customers' cloth on account, so the proverb's image is drawn from an ordinary and recognizable commercial arrangement, not an abstraction. It is the only proverb in this file to locate the moment of disclosure specifically at death, distinct from entry 6's claim that every household has an ongoing secret and entry 35's claim that disclosure is a general destination; here disclosure has one particular, named trigger.
39. Oníkùn ló mọ̀kà; oníbàǹtẹ́ ló moye òun-ún dì sí i.
Literal: Oníkùn the-owner-of-the-stomach ló mọ̀kà is-who alone-knows what-lies-inside; oníbàǹtẹ́ the-owner-of-the-loin-pouch ló moye òun-ún dì sí i is-who alone-knows how-much she-has-tied into-it.
Idiomatic: "The owner of the stomach alone knows what wickedness lurks inside; the owner of the loin money pouch alone knows how much money she has tied up in it."
Meaning: Certain kinds of knowledge are structurally private: they belong to a single person by the nature of where they are kept, not by any effort of concealment.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No one knows what secret lies buried inside other people"
Notes: The parallel between the stomach, holding what a person has swallowed and not disclosed, and the loin-pouch, holding money tied against the body, matches the digestive image already used for the trustworthy elder in entry 16, but here the point is epistemic rather than moral: the proverb is not praising discretion, it is observing a limit on what any outside party can ever know. Owomoyela notes it has a variant, which he does not quote in full in the material consulted here.
40. Ibi tí lékèélékèé ti ńfọṣọ, Ọlọ́run ò fi han ọmọ àparò.
Literal: Ibi tí lékèélékèé ti ńfọṣọ the-place where the-cattle-egret washes its-clothes, Ọlọ́run ò fi han God has-not shown ọmọ àparò the-child-of-the-partridge.
Idiomatic: "The place where the cattle egret washes its clothes has not been revealed by God to the partridge."
Meaning: The source of one creature's spotless advantage over another is kept from the disadvantaged party, so that some secrets of success stay genuinely, permanently hidden rather than eventually surfacing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The secret of some people's success is fortunately not common knowledge to all"
Notes: The image rests on the two birds' actual appearance, the egret's clean white plumage against the partridge's mottled, dust-colored one, so that the proverb explains a real visual contrast with an invented cause, a secret washing place, which is presented as permanently withheld rather than merely well hidden for now. This is the one proverb in the file that runs against the collection's dominant claim (entries 35, 41, 42) that secrets inevitably surface; it states instead that some concealment is durable, and the tension between the two positions is worth marking rather than resolving.
41. Bí a bá gé igi nígbó, gbohùn-gbohùn á gbà á.
Literal: Bí a bá gé igi nígbó if we cut a-tree in-the-forest, gbohùn-gbohùn the-echo, sound-carrying-sound á gbà á will carry it.
Idiomatic: "If one fells a tree in the forest, the echo carries the sound."
Meaning: An action performed where no witness is present still produces evidence of itself that travels beyond the place it happened.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Not even things done in secret can be long concealed"
Notes: Gbohùn-gbohùn, reduplicating ohùn, sound or voice, names the phenomenon of an echo directly rather than describing it, and the image works because felling a tree is loud and unmistakable even with no one standing near enough to see it happen; the forest's remoteness, which should guarantee privacy, is exactly what makes the sound's carrying distance the point. It is the cleanest physical demonstration in the file of the general claim stated abstractly in entry 35.
42. Gba-n-gba-á dẹkùn, kedere-é bẹ̀ ẹ́ wò: ọ̀rọ̀ ìkọ̀kọ̀ ò sí níbẹ̀.
Literal: Gba-n-gba-á dẹkùn an-open-space traps-a-leopard, kedere-é bẹ̀ ẹ́ wò plainly-visibly one peeps and-looks-at-it: ọ̀rọ̀ ìkọ̀kọ̀ ò sí níbẹ̀ a-secret matter is-not there.
Idiomatic: "A leopard is trapped in open space; clear sight gets a good look at it; the matter does not admit of secrets."
Meaning: Once something dangerous or hidden is caught out in the open, it is by definition no longer capable of being kept secret.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Once a secret is leaked, it can no longer be hidden"
Notes: Gba-n-gba, wide-open space, is the same term used in entry 35, and here it is given a dramatic scene, a leopard, itself a byword for danger and stealth, caught in a place with no cover, which converts the abstract claim about secrets into a single vivid image of a predator with nowhere to hide. The proverb states a fact about a completed disclosure rather than a prediction about a future one, distinguishing it from entries like 35 and 41, which describe secrets in the process of escaping.
43. Epinrin ní ńwú epinrin sílẹ̀; òkú ọ̀gáláńtá ní ńwú òkú ògolonto.
Literal: Epinrin a-secret ní ńwú epinrin sílẹ̀ is-what exposes another secret; òkú ọ̀gáláńtá a-half-shrouded corpse ní ńwú òkú ògolonto is-what exposes a-fully-unshrouded corpse.
Idiomatic: "It is epinrin [a secret] that exposes epinrin; it is a half-shrouded corpse that exposes a shroudless corpse."
Meaning: The exposure of one hidden thing tends to trigger the exposure of another; someone whose secret is revealed often retaliates by revealing the secret of the one who exposed them.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Exposure of one secret calls for the exposure of another; the person whose secret is exposed will expose the exposer's secret"
Notes: Epinrin is a rarer word for a secret, distinct from the far more common àṣírí and ìkọ̀kọ̀ used throughout the rest of this file, and Owomoyela glosses it in brackets rather than translating it outright, which suggests it may already have been a less current term when the entry was collected. The corpse image adds a second, starker layer: an incompletely shrouded body draws attention to a wholly unshrouded one nearby, making public dignity, like a kept secret, something that survives only in comparison to a worse-kept neighbor.
Secret wrongdoing before God
Owomoyela's collection contains a tight cluster of proverbs stating, in five different sets of words, that secret wrongdoing is nonetheless visible to God. The repetition itself is a genuine feature of the recorded corpus, not an artifact of this file's selection, and all five are kept together here rather than reduced to one representative example, because the density of the cluster is part of what it demonstrates about the weight this idea carries.
44. Afìkọ̀kọ̀jalè, bí ọba ayé ò rí ọ; tọ̀rún rí ọ.
Literal: A-fi-ìkọ̀kọ̀-jalè one-who-steals-using-secrecy, bí ọba ayé ò rí ọ if the-king of-the-world does-not see you, tọ̀rún rí ọ the-one-in-heaven sees you.
Idiomatic: "You-who-steal-in-secret, if an earthly king does not see you, the heavenly king sees you."
Meaning: Secrecy defeats human oversight but not divine oversight; theft committed where no earthly authority can see is still seen.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Nothing is hidden from God"
Notes: The proverb sets up a direct comparison between two kings, the earthly ọba and the heavenly one, a structure that appears elsewhere in Yorùbá religious proverb (compare entry 41 of yoruba-owe-proverbs, on the king watched by his people, though there without the heavenly parallel). Naming the thief by a compound epithet, afìkọ̀kọ̀jalè, rather than a plain noun, follows the same pattern as entries 6 and 12, coining a title out of the offense itself.
45. Bí a bá ńyọ́lẹ̀ dà, ohun abẹ́nú a máa yọ́ni ṣe.
Literal: Bí a bá ńyọ́lẹ̀ dà if we are secretly-scheming and-pouring-out treachery, ohun abẹ́nú things of-the-inside, i.e. hidden misfortunes, a máa yọ́ni ṣe will come and secretly afflict one.
Idiomatic: "If one engages secretly in treachery, secret disasters come."
Meaning: Treachery practiced in secret is repaid with misfortune that arrives the same way it was earned, unannounced and from an unseen source.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Crimes committed in secret do not go unrequited"
Notes: The proverb matches the manner of the punishment to the manner of the crime, secret disaster for secret treachery, rather than describing an open reckoning; the retribution stays inside the same register of concealment the offense was committed in. This makes it distinct from the other four entries in this cluster, which all involve an explicit act of divine seeing or judging; here the mechanism of consequence is left unnamed, closer to an impersonal law than to a watching God.
46. Bí o finú ṣìkà tí o fòde ṣòótọ́, ọba séríkí á rín ọ rín ọ.
Literal: Bí o finú ṣìkà if you inside are-wicked tí o fòde ṣòótọ́ while outside you-are honest, ọba séríkí the-supreme king (God) á rín ọ rín ọ will laugh you laugh you, i.e. will laugh hard at you.
Idiomatic: "If you hide wickedness inside you while displaying a kindly disposition, God above will laugh hard at you."
Meaning: A double life, wicked within and honest in appearance, is not merely seen through by God but treated with open mockery.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No secret act of wickedness is concealed from God"
Notes: Ọba séríkí, an honorific title for the supreme king applied here to God, and the doubled verb rín ọ rín ọ, "will laugh you laugh you," is an intensive construction giving the laughter a mocking, prolonged quality rather than a single reaction. Laughter is a notably different divine response from the plain "seeing" of entries 44 and 48, and it adds an element of contempt to the consequence that those more neutral statements of omniscience do not carry.
47. Ká fi inú ṣèkà, ká fòde ṣòótọ́, kan-kan lara ńnini; ohun tí ḿbini kò níí ṣàì bini wò.
Literal: Ká fi inú ṣèkà to be inside wicked, ká fòde ṣòótọ́ to be outside honest, kan-kan lara ńnini is-what gives one unease, ill-at-ease-ness; ohun tí ḿbini the-thing that is-supposed-to hold-one-to-account kò níí ṣàì bini wò will-not fail to come and hold-one-to-account.
Idiomatic: "If one is kind outwardly but secretly wicked, one is beset by unease; whatever is supposed to call one to account will not fail to do so."
Meaning: Living a divided life produces its own internal discomfort, and the reckoning it deserves is guaranteed to eventually arrive.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Wickedness, however well concealed, will not go unpunished"
Notes: This is a close variant of entry 46 in structure, the same inside-wicked, outside-honest formula, but it drops the named figure of God laughing and instead locates the first consequence internally, as unease felt by the wrongdoer, before naming an unspecified external accounting. Kept alongside entry 46 as a genuine variant rather than folded into it, because the shift from an external, mocking God to an internal, anxious conscience marks a real difference in how the two texts imagine consequence.
48. Ìbàjẹ́ ìkọ̀kọ̀, gba-n-gba ni lójú Olúwa.
Literal: Ìbàjẹ́ ìkọ̀kọ̀ corruption done-in-secret, gba-n-gba ni is-in-the-open, lójú Olúwa in-the-eye of-the-Lord.
Idiomatic: "Wickedness perpetrated in secret is open knowledge to God."
Meaning: What is hidden from every human observer stands in full, unobstructed view of God.
Used when: Owomoyela: "No secret wickedness can be hidden from God"
Notes: This is the tersest of the five, four Yorùbá words carrying the whole claim, and it uses the same gba-n-gba, wide-open space, that entries 35 and 42 use for secular disclosure, here applied to a divine rather than a social audience. Set against entry 35's "secret matters have open exposure as their ultimate destination," which makes no reference to God at all, the pairing suggests two parallel versions of the same underlying claim in the corpus, one framed as an impersonal social law and one framed as a theological certainty, and it is not clear that Yorùbá speakers experienced them as different statements.
Discretion, private space, and hidden affairs
49. A kì í mọ ọkọ ọmọ ká tún mọ àlè-e rẹ̀.
Literal: A kì í mọ ọkọ ọmọ one does-not acknowledge the-husband of-one's-child ká tún mọ àlè-e rẹ̀ and also acknowledge her illicit-lover.
Idiomatic: "One does not acknowledge the husband for one's child and also acknowledge her illicit lover."
Meaning: A parent cannot honor both the legitimate marriage and the secret affair at once; supporting one relationship by definition means not endorsing the other.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Never betray trust or connive at betraying it"
Notes: Àlè names specifically an illicit lover, a married woman's secret partner outside her marriage, a distinct social category from a suitor or a co-wife, and the proverb's force depends on that precision: it is not simply advising against two-facedness in the abstract, it is naming one exact family situation in which acknowledging both parties is structurally impossible. It opens this section because it establishes the file's clearest boundary case for what counts as a household's shameful secret.
50. A kì í sin àlè kọjá odò; ohun tí ńṣe ọṣẹ́ ò tó ǹkan.
Literal: A kì í sin àlè kọjá odò one does-not escort a-secret-lover across a-river; ohun tí ńṣe ọṣẹ́ the-thing that causes a-huge-disaster ò tó ǹkan is-not-up-to much, i.e. is usually trivial in itself.
Idiomatic: "One does not walk one's secret lover across a river; the causes of huge disasters are usually insignificant in themselves."
Meaning: An already risky, secret undertaking should not be compounded with an unnecessary extra exposure, because the incident that finally brings a hidden arrangement down is typically a small, avoidable one, not a dramatic collapse.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one is engaged in a dangerous venture, one should not also cast discretion to the wind"
Notes: Crossing a river with a companion required a real, physical, and visible act, likely involving a ferryman or a public crossing point, so the image is of a concrete, practical failure of discretion rather than a general moral lapse. The proverb's second clause generalizes beyond the specific case of the secret lover to a wider claim about disaster and its trivial causes, which is why it is quoted independently of its first clause in other contexts; here the two are kept together as printed.
51. Ọ̀dẹ̀dẹ̀ ò gba òró, àfi abẹ́ ọdán.
Literal: Ọ̀dẹ̀dẹ̀ the-porch, veranda ò gba òró does-not accommodate standing-people, àfi abẹ́ ọdán except under-the-shade of-the-ọdán-tree.
Idiomatic: "The porch does not accommodate standing people; only the shade of the ọdán [banyan tree] does."
Meaning: A confidential conversation needs a space suited to it, away from the porch where household traffic passes and ears are near.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An invitation to repair to another place outside other people's earshot to discuss confidential matters"
Notes: The ọdán, a large banyan-type fig tree, is a real feature of Yorùbá compounds and town centers, often marking a customary meeting spot precisely because its shade allows a small group to stand apart from the household's main traffic. Functioning as a spoken invitation rather than a general maxim, this proverb is used performatively, said in order to move a conversation rather than to comment on one already finished, which distinguishes it from most of the entries in this file.
52. Bí ọ̀ràn-án bá ṣú òkùnkùn, à bẹ̀ ẹ́ wò lábẹ́.
Literal: Bí ọ̀ràn-án bá ṣú òkùnkùn if a-matter becomes dark-like-night, à bẹ̀ ẹ́ wò lábẹ́ one peeps and-looks-at-it from-underneath, i.e. investigates it under cover.
Idiomatic: "If a matter is dark, one peeps at it under cover."
Meaning: A matter that is genuinely obscure or closely guarded calls for quiet, careful investigation rather than open confrontation.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If the facts of a matter are a close secret, one should quietly investigate it"
Notes: The darkness here is figurative, an obscure or hidden matter, but the verb of peeping, bẹ̀ ẹ́ wò, is the same physical gesture used literally in entry 31 for a monkey peeping at a person, and in entry 42 for looking plainly at an exposed leopard; the file's vocabulary of looking and peeping recurs across several entries with the same handful of verbs doing different figurative work each time. This proverb licenses discretion in the investigator, not only in the secret-keeper, which is a role this file otherwise gives little attention to.
53. Ẹ̀gbá mọ̀dí Ọbà; ẹni tó gbéniṣánlẹ̀-ẹ́ lè pani.
Literal: Ẹ̀gbá mọ̀dí Ọbà the-Ẹ̀gbá know the-base, i.e. secrets, of-Ọbà town; ẹni tó gbéniṣánlẹ̀-ẹ́ the-one who can throw-a-person-down lè pani can also kill-a-person.
Idiomatic: "The Ẹ̀gbá know the secrets of Ọbà town; whoever throws a person has the ability to kill the person."
Meaning: Knowledge of a person's or a community's hidden weaknesses confers real power over them, comparable to the physical advantage a skilled wrestler holds over an opponent he can already throw.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whoever holds a person's secret has some power over that person, just as the wrestler who can throw his opponents can probably also kill him"
Notes: The Ẹ̀gbá and Ọbà are named historical Yorùbá polities, which grounds the proverb's first clause in a specific, once-current claim about intergroup knowledge rather than a generic image, though the details of that historical relationship are not recoverable from the proverb alone. The second clause supplies the proverb's logic by analogy from wrestling, a skill with codified, recognized stages of advantage, and the pairing makes an unusually direct claim among this file's entries: a secret held is treated here as leverage, not merely as information.
54. Àṣá ò gbádìẹ níkọ̀kọ̀; gbangba làṣá ńgbádìẹ.
Literal: Àṣá the-kite ò gbádìẹ níkọ̀kọ̀ does-not snatch-a-chick in-secret; gbangba in-the-open làṣá ńgbádìẹ is-how the-kite snatches-a-chick.
Idiomatic: "The kite does not snatch chicks in secret; it snatches them openly."
Meaning: Whatever a person or creature is prepared to be seen doing, they do openly, without needing the cover of secrecy.
Used when: Owomoyela: "What one dare do, one does openly"
Notes: The proverb reverses the expected association between predation and stealth: a hawk snatching a chick is a fast, visible, daylight raid, not a nighttime theft, and the point is precisely that confidence needs no concealment. It stands as a deliberate counterweight to the run of proverbs earlier in this file (32, 37, 46) that treat secretive behavior as the mark of guilt, showing that Yorùbá proverb usage also has a category for boldness that requires no hiding at all.
55. Alásẹ́ mọ̀ pé ó ńjò kó tó rà á; ẹní hún mọ̀ pé ó ńjò kó tó tà á; iṣẹ́-ẹ jíjò ni wọ́ fi ńṣe.
Literal: Alásẹ́ the-owner-of-the-sieve mọ̀ pé ó ńjò knew that it leaks kó tó rà á before he bought it; ẹní hún the-one-who-wove-it mọ̀ pé ó ńjò knew that it leaks kó tó tà á before he sold it; iṣẹ́-ẹ jíjò the-task of-leaking ni wọ́ fi ńṣe is-what they use-it to-do.
Idiomatic: "The owner of the sieve knew that it leaked before buying it; the weaver of the sieve knew that it leaked before selling it; after all, it is used for tasks that call for leaking."
Meaning: Where the true, unhidden character of a transaction or an arrangement is understood by both parties beforehand, no one has grounds to later complain about it as if it had been concealed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If the particulars of a transaction are not kept secret, no party involved has grounds for complaint"
Notes: A sieve is manufactured to let some things through and hold others back, so calling its permeability a defect is a category error, and the proverb uses that everyday object to make a general legal-flavored point about consent and disclosure: what both sides know and agree to in the open was never anyone's secret. It closes this section, and the file, on a proverb about full disclosure functioning correctly, the transactional counterpart to entry 15's image of an unguarded confidant, both showing what the absence of secrecy looks like when it works.
Reading this set
The talebearer is a settled social type with a fixed vocabulary, not a loose accusation. Olófòófó, aláròkiri, abanijẹ́, akẹ́gàn, abúni: Yorùbá names the gossip, the tattler, the detractor, and the slanderer with distinct, non-overlapping nouns, and this file's proverbs deploy several of them side by side (entries 8, 10, 17 to 22) rather than treating gossip as a single undifferentiated fault. The consistent verdict across all of them is economic and social rather than purely moral: the talebearer earns no real profit (19), gains nothing from the exposure they cause (17), and possesses no standing worth fearing (21, 22). Contempt, not outrage, is the register.
The corpus disagrees with itself on whether secrets can be kept at all. The dominant claim, stated most starkly in entries 35, 41, and 42, is that concealment is temporary by nature and disclosure is only a matter of time. But entry 40, on the cattle egret's washing place hidden from the partridge, states the opposite: that some advantages stay permanently unexplained. And entry 5 grants secrecy a legitimate, ongoing place in covenant relationships rather than treating it as inherently doomed to fail. A single reading of "what Yorùbá proverbs say about secrets" that resolves this tension in either direction would be inventing a system these proverbs, used on different occasions for different purposes, do not actually form.
Trust is measured against a very high bar, and most relationships fail it. Read consecutively, entries 8 through 15 form something close to an argument: the tattler cannot be trusted (8), the treacherous person cannot (9), even a confidant chosen with care may turn out to be a blabbermouth or a ruin (10, 11), even the merely transparent are a liability (13), and even a full sibling may betray (14). Only entry 15, on the one confidant before whom speech pours freely, states the positive case, and it is a single proverb set against seven skeptical ones. Two proverbs, aimed only at women (7, 24), sharpen that general distrust into an explicit, gendered rule with no equivalent stated against men, and that asymmetry is reported here as a fact about the recorded corpus rather than defended or dismissed.