What Is Not Here: Gaps, Dead Ends and a Warning About Ìjímèrè

Collector

These exist, are relevant, and could not be read by this compiler. They are named so that anyone extending this section knows where to go, and so that nothing here is mistaken for a complete survey. Yorùbá-language collections. These are the principal gap, and no amount of English-language searching substitutes for them. - Adeboye Babalọlá, Àkójọpọ̀ Àlọ́ Ìjàpá, Apá Kìíní and Apá Kejì (Ibadan: Oxford University Press, 1973; Part 2 dated 1979 in one source and 1973 in another, a discrepancy this compiler could not resolve). The major Yorùbá-language Ìjàpá collection. Only its opening formula reaches this section, at second hand through Kambon, in `alo-the-opening-formula-and-the-teller`. - Adun Amoo, Àkójọpọ̀ Àlọ́ Àpagbè (2010), named in `yoruba-alo`. No excerpts, reviews or contents listings could be found. A closely related Adebisi Amoo, Àlọ́ Àpagbè (Ibadan: Evans Brothers Nigeria, 1987) appears in a published bibliography; whether they are the same work could not be established. - Olatunji Opadotun, Àṣàyàn Àlọ́ Onítàn (Ibadan: Y-Books, 1994). - Oladipo Yemitan and Olajide Ogundele, Ojú Òṣùpá, Apá Kìíní and Kejì (Ibadan: Oxford University Press, 1970). - Olagoke Ojo, Ìjàpá Tìrókò Ọkọ Yannibo (Longman Nigeria, 1973; new edition 2005). English-language scholarly collections. - Oyekan Owomoyela, Yoruba Trickster Tales (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997). The standard scholarly collection of the Ìjàpá cycle, containing 23 tales. Not a single tale title or line of text from it reaches this section. Every access route was closed: archive.org lending restriction, search-inside unavailable, no publisher preview. This is the largest single gap in the section, and it is the more frustrating because Owomoyela's proverb collection is the backbone of `owe-tortoise-ijapa-trickster`. - Harold Courlander and Ezekiel A. Eshugbayi, Olode the Hunter, and Other Tales from Nigeria (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968), published in the United Kingdom as Ijapa the Tortoise, and Other Nigerian Tales (London: Bodley Head, 1969). 29 stories, mostly Yorùbá, with per-story notes and a dedicated essay on Ìjàpá. Eshugbayi was from Ilesha. Lending-restricted; the Ìjàpá essay in particular would be worth having. - Barbara K. Walker and Warren S. Walker, eds., Nigerian Folk Tales, as told by Olawale Idewu and Omotayo Adu (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1961). The best attribution quality identified anywhere in this research, since the narrators are named on the title page. Lending-restricted. - Ropo Sekoni, Folk Poetics: A Sociosemiotic Study of Yoruba Trickster Tales (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994). The standing monograph on the narrative poetics of the cycle. - Abayomi Fuja, Fourteen Hundred Cowries: Traditional Stories of the Yoruba (Oxford University Press). Contains a leopard tale, "Concerning the Leopard and the Hedgehog," whose title only could be confirmed. - Bakare Gbadamosi and Ulli Beier, Not Even God Is Ripe Enough: Yoruba Stories (London: Heinemann Educational, African Writers Series 48, 1968). Its story titles are themselves proverbs, which places it squarely in the wisdom-and-folly register this section is thin on. Contents not obtainable. - Harold Courlander, Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes (New York: Crown, 1973). Orisha and heroic material rather than àlọ́. - Melville J. and Frances S. Herskovits, Dahomean Narrative: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1958). One article. Olumide Olugbemi-Gabriel, "African Folktales and Social Order: A Study of Selected Yoruba Folktales," in Ademowo and Oladipo, eds., Engaging the Future in the Present: Issues in Culture and Philosophy (Ibadan: Hope Publications, 2015), pp. 46-55. Directly on topic; access blocked.