Asín àti Òkéré: Why the Tortoise's Nose Is Small
A tortoise tale in which Ìjàpá abandons his market stall to judge a fight between a shrew rat and a squirrel, takes a side, and loses his nose for it, with the Yorùbá text of the Jómijó song.
This is a short tortoise tale that explains why the tortoise's nose is small. Ìjàpá leaves his goods unattended at market to watch a fight between Asín the shrew rat and Òkéré the squirrel, appoints himself judge, takes the squirrel's side, and the shrew rat bites his nose and holds on. It carries a five-line song with the refrain Jómijó, published in Yorùbá with English glosses from a named informant .
The animals
Omolaye identifies both before telling the tale, which is itself evidence of how these tales work: the aetiology depends on knowing the creatures .
Asín, the shrew rat, is a small rat with a long mouth and a distinctive smell. Omolaye notes that there is nowhere the shrew rat is present that one would not perceive its odour .
Òkéré, the squirrel, is a small rat with a hairy tail that jumps from one tree to another, and it loves palm fruits .
The long mouth of the shrew rat is what makes the tale's ending anatomically legible: the animal that bites and holds is built for exactly that.
The tale
As told by Elder Adeoye Olarewaju, aged 75, of Akodi-Aga, Ile-Ifẹ̀, recorded 3 February 2022 .
In the olden days, when animals sounded like men, a tortoise was selling dishes. One day he took his dishes to the market for sale. While he was selling he heard a rumour of a fight, and immediately left his sales to go and watch.
When he got there he saw Asín and Òkéré exchanging combat. Ìjàpá decided to settle their quarrel, but he was sentimental in his judgement: he sided with the squirrel and condemned the shrew rat.
When Asín discovered that Ìjàpá was being partial, he ignored the squirrel altogether, turned on the tortoise, and bit his nostrils. Ìjàpá shouted in agony and began to sing.
Call: Asín tòun t'ò kéré Response: Jómijó Call: Àwon ló jo n jà Response: Jómijó Call: L'a sín bá fi mí nímú je Response: Jómijó Call: Ègbà mí ló wó rè Response: Jómijó Call: Àwò mi n be ló jà Response: Jómijó
- Asín tòun t'ò kéré the-shrew-rat together-with the-squirrel
- Àwon ló jo n jà they are-the-ones who together were fighting
- L'a sín bá fi mí nímú je and-the-shrew-rat then took me by-the-nose and-ate
- Ègbà mí rescue me ló wó rè from his hands
- Àwò mi my dishes n be ló jà are there in-the-market
Translator: Bamidele Omolaye
Call: The Shrew rat and the Squirrel Response: Jómijó Call: The two were fighting Response: Jómijó Call: The Shrew bit my nose Response: Jómijó Call: Save me from his hands Response: Jómijó Call: My dishes were in the market Response: Jómijó
The article prints no subdots anywhere in its Yorùbá , so Àwon stands for Àwọn, je for jẹ, Ègbà for Ẹ̀gbà, Àwò for Àwo, and n for the continuous marker ń. The text is reproduced as printed and flagged rather than corrected. The literal gloss is the compiler's, built on Omolaye's English, and carries medium confidence for that reason. Jómijó is a refrain of the non-lexical kind and Omolaye leaves it untranslated; the corpus does not supply a meaning for it.
The song's last line is the one that matters, and the translation cannot mark it as the punchline the way the performance does. Ìjàpá is being bitten on the face and he is still thinking about his stall. Four lines report the emergency and the fifth reports the unattended merchandise, so the plea for rescue is immediately followed by the real anxiety. The corpus notes the same self-interest under duress in the drum tale, alo-ijapa-singing-drum.
As Ìjàpá sang in agony, the other traders and passers-by came to his rescue. But the shrew rat had already damaged his nose with the prolonged bite before he was pulled off. That is why the tortoise's nose is short and disfigured to this day.
What the tale does
The mechanism is that a self-appointed judge who is not impartial becomes a party to the quarrel. Ìjàpá has no standing in this fight. He is not asked to judge it, he is not a relative of either animal, and he is not even a spectator with nothing to lose, since his goods are sitting unattended in the market while he does this. He inserts himself, takes a side on sentiment rather than on the facts, and the wronged party redirects the whole attack onto him. Asín does not merely resent the verdict; he "ignored the squirrel," which is to say the original dispute is abandoned entirely once a partial judge appears. The bad judgement replaces the quarrel it was meant to settle.
Omolaye states what the tale is told for: to redirect children's mindset away from being sentimental, to teach them to mind their own business, and, most importantly in his account, to stay away from fights and quarrels . The corpus's proverb material on the same ground is in owe-enmity-quarrel-reconciliation, and the material on judgement and standing is in owe-justice-judgement-court.
The tale is also a lesson about the cost of distraction that is priced twice. Ìjàpá loses his nose permanently and, on the evidence of the song's last line, very possibly his dishes as well, and both losses come from the same decision to leave a stall to watch a fight. The corpus marks as analysis the observation that the punishment lands on the face, the part of the body used for looking: the tortoise went to see something that was not his business, and the tale takes the instrument of his curiosity.
The aetiological cluster
This is one of a set of tales in this section that explain the tortoise's body. alo-why-the-tortoise-shell-is-marked gathers the four documented narratives for the marked or cracked shell. This tale accounts for the nose, and alo-ijapa-and-the-babalawo is given by at least one modern source an ending explaining the hollow belly, though its scholarly transcription lacks that coda.
The pattern across the group is consistent and worth stating: the tortoise's anatomy is treated as a record of his misconduct. The shell is marked because he was smashed for theft, the nose is short because he judged a fight dishonestly. owe-tortoise-ijapa-trickster shows the same logic operating in the proverb record, where the body supplies the argument.
Variants
yorubatales.com carries a version titled "Why Ijapa's Nose Is Very Small (Ijapa, Asin and Okere)" , which indicates the tale still circulates with the same cast. No text is quoted from it, since the site carries no per-tale attribution. No second scholarly transcription was located by this compiler, and the record consulted is silent on regional variation.
Performance context
Evening telling, treated in yoruba-alo; musical setting described in Omolaye's article . This is a short tale with a single song, which makes it suitable for the youngest listeners, and the moral is stated as a direct instruction rather than left implicit.
Sources
- [1]Omolaye, Bamidele, "Aesthetics and Utilitarian Essence of Selected Yorùbá Folktales," Accelerando: Belgrade Journal of Music and Dance, Issue 8 (2023), article 3. ISSN 2466-3913. Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ifẹ̀. Open access: https://accelerandobjmd.pages.dev/articles/issue8/aesthetics-of-selected-yoruba-folktales/ (Peer-reviewed. The narrative of Asín àti Òkéré; the descriptions of both animals; the Yorùbá song and English glosses; the informant table naming Elder Adeoye Olarewaju, 75, male, Akodi-Aga, Ile-Ifẹ̀, 03/02/22; the stated moral readings. No subdots anywhere in the article's Yorùbá text; reproduced in that state and flagged.)
- [2]Alade-Belo, Oyinkan, Yorùbá Folktales Revisited, https://yorubatales.com/. Cited only for the presence of the tale in its inventory. No per-tale source attribution; nothing quoted.