Òwe on Children, Parenthood and Inheritance
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on bearing and raising children, the duties of parents, the training of the young, and what passes from one generation to the next.
intermediatehigh·
Loading…
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on bearing and raising children, the duties of parents, the training of the young, and what passes from one generation to the next.
This file collects Yorùbá proverbs about children and what adults owe them. Ọmọ is the pivot word and it is wider than English "child": it means offspring at any age, a young person, a native of a place, and by extension a member or product of anything, so ọmọ ìlú is a townsman and ọmọ ẹbọ an acolyte. Several proverbs here trade on that width, and the literal glosses keep it visible.
Two premises run under the whole set. The first is that children are the point of a marriage and of a lineage, so childlessness is a catastrophe rather than a preference and the proverbs treat it that way. The second is that a child is trainable material for which named adults are answerable, which is why so many of these proverbs are addressed to the parent rather than to the child. The corollary, stated bluntly in several entries, is that a badly turned-out child is read as evidence against the household.
Entries marked are taken from Oyekan Owomoyela's digitised The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yorùbá Proverb Treasury at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which prints each proverb in standard orthography with full tone marking, his own English translation, and a bracketed usage annotation . The Yorùbá text and the quoted idiomatic English are Owomoyela's, reproduced as printed, including his elisions, his hyphenated compressed nominals such as À-bí-ì-kọ́, and his bracketed clarifications inside translations. Owomoyela's own explanatory endnotes are cited where they bear on a reading.
The literal line is by the compiler of this corpus, working from Owomoyela's Yorùbá to expose the metaphor his idiomatic line smooths. The used when line follows his usage annotation where he supplies one, and is marked as inference where he does not.
Owomoyela's parent collection is Yoruba Proverbs (Nebraska, 2005), 5,235 proverbs with usage annotations .
Literal: A kì í kọ ọmọ-ọ́ bí one does-not so-refuse the-birth-of-a-child ká sọ ọ́ ní Èwolódé that-one names it What-is-this-that-has-come?
Idiomatic: One does not so resent having a child that one names it What-is-this-that-has-happened? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A birth is a good outcome whatever the circumstances surrounding it.
Used when: Owomoyela glosses it simply: childbirth is always a happy event .
Notes: The proverb turns on the Yorùbá naming system, in which a name states the family's situation at the birth, so a resentful name would be a permanent public record of the resentment. Èwolódé is a constructed name of the sort the proverb rules out rather than one in use. The force of the proverb is that whatever the circumstances, they are not the child's to carry.
Literal: A kì í ka oyún inú one does-not count the-pregnancy-inside kún ọmọ ilẹ̀ among the-children-on-the-ground.
Idiomatic: One does not count a fetus among living children. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: What has not yet arrived cannot be counted as arrived.
Used when: Said against premature confidence in any expected outcome .
Notes: Ọmọ ilẹ̀, children on the ground, is the standing phrase for children already born and living, and it points at the practice of laying a newborn on the earth. Owomoyela reaches for the English chickens-and-hatching equivalent in his usage note, but the Yorùbá image is specifically about infant survival in a setting where it could not be assumed.
Literal: A kì í ka ọmọ one does-not count children fún òbí for the-parent.
Idiomatic: One does not enumerate children for the parents. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Do not tell people the facts of their own household.
Used when: Said to an outsider presuming to inform a family about its own affairs .
Notes: There is a second, darker reason for the rule that Owomoyela does not state and that this corpus flags as interpretation rather than source: counting a person's children aloud was widely felt to attract danger to them. The proverb as printed carries only the epistemic reading, so the additional reading is marked here as the compiler's and not attributed to the source. Confidence on this additional reading: medium.
Literal: Bí a kò bímọ rí if one has-never borne-a-child a kò ha rọ́mọ lẹ́hìn adìẹ has-one not seen chicks behind a-hen?
Idiomatic: If one has never had a child, has one not seen chicks flocking after chickens? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Nobody is so inexperienced as to have no idea what the thing involves.
Used when: Said to someone pleading total ignorance of a matter they have watched all their life .
Notes: Lẹ́hìn, behind, is the same word used for a child carried on the back, so the hen and chicks image sits directly on top of the human one. Owomoyela's usage note takes it as a claim that children are no novelty .
Literal: Ẹni tó tan ara-a rẹ̀ the-one who deceives himself lòrìṣà òkè ńtàn is-whom the-gods-above deceive àpọń tí ò láya nílé a-bachelor who has-no wife at-home tó ní kí òrìṣà ó bùn un lọ́mọ who asks that the-òrìṣà 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. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Do not ask the gods for what your own inaction has made impossible.
Used when: Said of anyone praying for an outcome while omitting the step that would produce it .
Notes: Àpọń is an unmarried man, and the proverb assumes without needing to say it that children come through a wife in the house. The theology is worth noting: the òrìṣà are held to answer petitions, and the criticism is of the petitioner's sequencing, not of petition itself.
Literal: À-gbà-bọ́ the-one-received-and-reared ò di tẹni does-not become one's-own.
Idiomatic: A foster child does not become one's own child. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A child raised for someone else remains theirs.
Used when: Owomoyela glosses it as there being nothing like having one's own .
Notes: Fostering was and is common in Yorùbá practice, with children raised by relatives, by patrons or by traders, so the proverb speaks to a live arrangement rather than a hypothetical. It is cold, and it is not the only Yorùbá position on the matter, which is worth saying plainly: the corpus elsewhere assigns real obligations to foster parents. This proverb states the limit of the relationship, not the whole of it.
Literal: "Gba ọmọ fún mi kí nrèdí" "take the-child for me so-I-may-move-my-hips" bí ìdí ò bá ṣe-é re if the-hips cannot be-moved ká gbọ́mọ fọ́lọ́mọ let-one give-the-child back-to-the-child's-owner.
Idiomatic: "Hold my child for me so I may wiggle my buttocks"; if one cannot wiggle one's buttocks one should return the child to its mother. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: If taking on someone's burden does not free you to do the thing you took it on for, hand it back.
Used when: Said when a favour has become pure cost with no remaining purpose .
Notes: The scene is a dance: a woman hands off her baby so she can dance, and the point is that if the dancing is not happening the arrangement has lost its reason. Ọlọ́mọ, the owner of the child, is the ordinary term for the mother and carries no harshness in Yorùbá.
Literal: "Wo ọmọ-ọ̀ mi dè mí" "look-after my child for me" ó ńlo kíjìpá mẹ́ta gbó she wears three hand-loom-wrappers to-tatters mélòó ni ọlọ́mọ-ọ́ máa lò gbó how-many will the-child's-own-mother wear to-tatters?
Idiomatic: "Look after the child for me": she wears three durable hand-loom wrappers to tatters; how many would the mother of the child herself wear out? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The person minding the child should not exhaust their own resources doing it.
Used when: Said by or about a nurse, foster carer or helper bearing more cost than the principal .
Notes: Kíjìpá is a thick hand-woven cotton wrapper, and wearing three of them out is the measure of how long and how hard the carrying has gone on, since a baby is carried in the wrapper. Owomoyela's usage note frames it as the caretaker not spending everything for an employer . Read with entry 7, it forms a small body of proverb-law about the limits of child-minding.
Literal: Èló là ńra adìẹ òkókó how-much does-one buy a-pullet tí à ńgba ọmọ-ọ rẹ̀ sìn that-one takes its-chicks to-rear?
Idiomatic: How much does a hen cost that one would contract to raise chicks for the owner? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Some obligations cost more than the thing they are attached to is worth.
Used when: Said when declining a burdensome duty attached to a trivial benefit .
Notes: The proverb is built as a rhetorical question with an implied answer of "very little," and it belongs with entries 7 and 8 as part of the same argument about fostering and child-minding.
Literal: Bí a bá fi ọwọ́ ọ̀tún na ọmọ if one uses the-right hand to-beat a-child à fi ọwọ́ òsì fà á mọ́ra one uses the-left hand to-draw it close.
Idiomatic: If one whips a child with the right hand, one embraces it with the left. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Punishment and affection belong to the same act.
Used when: Said to a parent disciplining harshly, and to justify discipline to a child .
Notes: Owomoyela prints the hands this way round, right for the beating and left for the embrace. The version given in yoruba-owe-proverbs reverses them, left for the beating and right for the embrace, which loads the affection onto the senior hand and makes the discipline the lesser gesture. This is a material difference in emphasis between attested variants and this corpus records both rather than choosing. Owomoyela's usage note is that a child deserving punishment yet deserves love .
Literal: Abiyamọ́ a-nursing-mother ṣọwọ́ kòtò cups the-hand hollow lu ọmọ-ọ rẹ̀ to-strike her-child.
Idiomatic: A nursing mother cups her palm to strike her child. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Correction from the person who loves you is calibrated not to injure.
Used when: Owomoyela's gloss is that discretion is the better part of discipline .
Notes: The physical observation is exact: a cupped palm makes noise and little damage, while a flat one does the reverse, so the mother is performing punishment. Abiyamọ, the nursing mother, is a weighty term in Yorùbá and carries strong associations of protective power.
Literal: A kì í yin ọmọdé lójú ara ẹ̀ one does-not praise a-child in-its-own-presence ìfàsẹ́hìn ní ńkángun ẹ̀ backsliding is-what ends it.
Idiomatic: One does not praise a child in his presence; only backsliding results. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Praise delivered to a child's face stops the child improving.
Used when: Said to an adult praising a child too warmly in front of them .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note adds the pedagogic principle: children should always be made aware they can do better . The proverb does not forbid praise, only praise in the hearing of its object, which is a precise and workable rule. It stands in some tension with entry 21 on gratitude being rewarded.
Literal: Àwítẹ́lẹ̀ prior-telling ní ńjẹ́ ọmọ́ gbẹ́nà is-what lets a-child understand-the-coded-way ọmọ kì í gbẹ́nà lásán a-child does-not understand-the-coded-way for-nothing.
Idiomatic: Previous-instruction enables a child to understand coded speech; a child does not naturally understand codes. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A child who picks up an indirect hint was taught to, and the credit belongs to the teaching.
Used when: Said in praise of a well-brought-up child, and by extension of anyone whose quickness reflects good preparation .
Notes: Gbẹ́nà is literally to understand the road, meaning to catch coded or allusive speech, and the ability to do so is exactly the competence proverbs themselves require. The proverb is therefore about how the proverb tradition is transmitted, which makes it unusually self-aware.
Literal: À-wí-ìgbọ́ one-told-but-not-hearing àfọ̀-ọ̀-gbọ́ one-spoken-to-but-not-hearing tí ńfi àjèjé ọwọ́ mumi who uses a-bare hand to-drink-water.
Idiomatic: He-who-will-not-listen-to-talk, he-who-will-not-listen-to-counsel, who drinks water with the bare hand. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The child who refuses instruction ends up doing everything the hard way.
Used when: Said of an obstinate young person, and Owomoyela's note names the obstinate child directly .
Notes: Drinking from a cupped hand rather than a vessel is the image of avoidable difficulty, and it is a small humiliation rather than a disaster, which is the right scale for the offence. The two opening nominals are the same compressed formation as À-bí-ì-kọ́ in file 10.
Literal: Ká wí ká gbà that-one-be-told and-one-accept ló yẹ ọmọ èèyàn is-what befits a-child-of-a-human-being.
Idiomatic: To heed advice is what best becomes a human being. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Taking correction is the mark of a properly raised person.
Used when: Said in commendation of someone who accepted a hard word .
Notes: Ọmọ èèyàn, child of a human being, is the standard phrase for a decent, properly socialised person, and it recurs across this collection as the measure of conduct. Rendering it as "human being" loses the fact that Yorùbá states the standard as a matter of descent and upbringing.
Literal: Ká wí ogún ká wí ọgbọ̀n speak twenty times, speak thirty times "Ng ò fẹ́, ng ò gbà" "I-do-not want, I-do-not accept" laṣiwèré fi ńpẹ̀kun ọ̀ràn is-how the-fool ends the-matter.
Idiomatic: Whether one speaks twenty times or speaks thirty times, "I do not like it, and I will not accept it" is how the imbecile ends the discussion. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Some people cannot be reached by argument at any length.
Used when: Said when advice has been repeatedly given and refused .
Notes: Twenty and thirty here are the Yorùbá counting units for large indefinite numbers rather than exact figures, so "again and again" is closer than the numerals suggest. This is the counterpart to entry 15, describing the failure the earlier proverb praises the avoidance of.
Literal: À-bí-ì-kọ́ one-born-but-not-taught à-kọ́-ì-gbà one-taught-but-not-accepting òde ló ti ńkọ́gbọ́n wálé it-is-from-outside that-he brings-wisdom home.
Idiomatic: A-child-that-was-never-taught-how-to-behave; a-child-that-was-taught-but-that-refused-to-heed-instruction; it is from outside the home that he will learn wisdom. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The child the household fails to train gets trained by the world instead, and painfully.
Used when: Owomoyela's note is a direct instruction to the parent: look well to your child's upbringing .
Notes: The two opening phrases name two distinct failures and circulate independently as diagnostic labels. This entry also appears in file 10, where it bears on the household's responsibility; here the emphasis is on the child's trajectory. Cross-listed deliberately, since the proverb genuinely does both jobs.
Literal: Àì-mọwọ́-ọ́-wẹ̀ not-knowing-how-to-wash-the-hands ni àì-bágbà-jẹ is not-eating-with-elders ọmọ tó mọwọ́-ọ́ wẹ̀ a-child who knows-how-to-wash-the-hands á bágbà jẹ will eat-with elders.
Idiomatic: Not-knowing-how-to-wash-one's-hands is not-eating-with-elders; a person who knows how to wash his hands will eat with elders. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Manners are the entry ticket to adult company.
Used when: Said to a child being taught table conduct, and generally about acquiring the graces that open doors .
Notes: Eating from a shared dish with the fingers makes handwashing a practical necessity and a social test at once, so the proverb is literal and metaphorical without strain. Owomoyela's note generalises to the social graces required to live in society . This is one of the clearest statements in the corpus that admission to seniority is earned by conduct.
Literal: Bí a bá ránni níṣẹ́ ẹrú if one is-sent on a-slave's errand à fi jẹ́ tọmọ one performs it as-a-freeborn-child.
Idiomatic: If one is sent on an errand like a slave, one carries it out like a freeborn. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: How you were treated does not license how you perform.
Used when: Said to someone tempted to do a job badly because the job was assigned insultingly .
Notes: Ọmọ here is specifically the freeborn child of the house as against ẹrú, the slave, and the proverb turns on a real legal distinction of its period. Owomoyela's note is that the well-bred person removes the flaws in a message entrusted to them , which reads the proverb as being about improving the errand rather than merely completing it.
Literal: Bí ọmọdé bá dúpẹ́ ore àná if a-child thanks-for yesterday's favour a rí tòní gbà he will-get today's to-receive.
Idiomatic: If a child expresses gratitude for yesterday's favor, he will receive today's. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Acknowledged generosity is repeated generosity.
Used when: Said to teach children to thank, and to explain why an ungrateful person stops receiving .
Notes: The proverb is one of the most quoted pieces of Yorùbá child-training and is often addressed to adults with the same force. Ore is a favour or kindness rather than a gift, so what is being acknowledged is an act, not an object.
Literal: Bí ọmọdé kọ iyán àná if a-child refuses yesterday's pounded-yam ìtàn la ó pa fún un stories are-what one will tell for-him.
Idiomatic: If a child refuses yesterday's pounded yams, it is stories one treats the child to. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Refuse what is offered and you get nothing instead of it.
Used when: Said of anyone who boycotts an entitlement and thereby simply loses it .
Notes: Pa ìtàn, to tell a story, uses the same verb pa as pa òwe, to strike a proverb, and the joke is that talk is what is left when food has been declined. Yesterday's pounded yam is cold and unappealing, so the child's refusal is understandable, which makes the outcome funnier and harsher.
Literal: A kì í lọ́mọ lẹ́hin one does-not have a-child on-the-back kọ oúnjẹ and-refuse food.
Idiomatic: One does not have children at one's rear and yet refuse food. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Responsibility for dependents overrides your own moods.
Used when: Said to a parent refusing food out of anger or grief, and generally against self-indulgent withdrawal by anyone with people to look after .
Notes: The literal scene is a nursing mother who must eat in order to feed, so the argument is nutritional before it is moral. Owomoyela's note generalises: no amount of anger or distress should keep one from looking after one's dependents .
Literal: A kì í bẹ̀rù ikú bẹ̀rù àrùn one does-not fear death, fear disease ká ní kí ọmọ ó kú sinni and ask that one's-child die to-bury-one.
Idiomatic: One does not so fear death and disease that one asks that one's child die before one. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Self-preservation does not extend to trading away those you are responsible for.
Used when: Said against anyone offloading danger onto dependents .
Notes: Kú sinni, to die and bury one, inverts the proper order in which children bury parents, and that inversion is the horror the proverb names. Yorùbá funerary thought treats being buried by one's children as the mark of a completed life, so the reversal is not merely sad but a ruined ending.
Literal: Adìẹ ò bí yọyọ a-hen does-not hatch a-swarm kú yọ̀ and-die of-joy.
Idiomatic: A chicken does not give birth to a multitude of chicks and die of the exertion. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Children should not be the death of the parent who produced them.
Used when: Said as a prayer and as a reproach, depending on delivery .
Notes: Owomoyela's endnote records that the proverb was suggested by the standard description of hens as ọlọ́mọ-yọyọ, mother of a swarm of chicks . The verb kú yọ̀ is idiomatically to die of joy, so the Yorùbá names an excess of good fortune as the cause of death rather than exertion, and Owomoyela's "exertion" is an interpretive choice worth noting.
Literal: A ní kọ́mọ má kùú we say let-the-child not die o ní kò jọ bàbá kò jọ ìyá you say it resembles-neither father nor mother.
Idiomatic: We strive to keep a child from dying, and you say he resembles neither the father nor the mother. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Cosmetic objections are obscene while survival is still in question.
Used when: Said to someone raising a trivial complaint in a crisis .
Notes: The proverb is a compact scene with two speakers and no narration. It also records, incidentally, that resemblance to parents was a matter families remarked on, which bears on paternity anxiety elsewhere in the corpus.
Literal: A bímọ kò gbọ́n one bore-a-child who-is-not-wise a ní kó má ṣàá kú one says let-it-only not die kí ní ńpa ọmọ bí àìgbọ́n what kills a-child like foolishness?
Idiomatic: A child lacks wisdom, and some say that what is important is that the child does not die; what kills more surely than lack of wisdom? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A child who cannot think is already lost, whatever their physical survival.
Used when: Said against parents content with a child's mere existence .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note is blunt: a foolish child is not much better than a dead child . Read against entry 25, the two proverbs disagree about whether survival settles the matter, and the disagreement is real rather than apparent. Àìgbọ́n is the negative nominal of gbọ́n, to be wise, formed with the àì- prefix.
Literal: Bí ọmọdé bá ṣubú if a-youth falls a wo iwájú he looks forward bí àgbá bá ṣubú if an-elder falls a wo ẹ̀hìn he looks backward.
Idiomatic: When a youth falls he looks ahead; when an elder falls he looks behind. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The young and the old orient themselves in opposite directions after a setback.
Used when: Cited to explain generational difference in outlook .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note gives a social reading that differs sharply from the usual one: the youth is mindful of what his superiors think of him, while the elder is mindful of what the young think of him, so both are checking who saw them fall . The reading offered in yoruba-owe-proverbs is temporal instead, the child looking to what comes next and the elder to what he tripped over. Both are defensible from the Yorùbá, which says only "forward" and "behind," and this corpus records the divergence rather than choosing. This is one of the best-attested Yorùbá proverbs and one of the most variously interpreted.
Literal: Bí ọmọdé bá ḿbẹ́ igi if a-youth is-felling a-tree àgbàlagbà a máa wo ibi tí yó wòó sí an-elder keeps-watching where it will fall.
Idiomatic: If a youth is felling a tree, an elder will be considering where it will fall. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The young attend to the action, the old to its consequences.
Used when: Said to justify an elder's caution in the face of youthful energy .
Notes: The image is practical rather than figurative, since a badly directed fall is a real hazard, and it is closely related to the deliberation proverb Bí a bá ń gé igi nínú igbó in yoruba-owe-proverbs. The proverb credits the young with the work and the old with the foresight, which is a fairer division than many in the elder proverbs.
Literal: Bí ọmọdé bá fẹ́ ṣìṣe àgbà if a-youth wishes to-act-as an-elder ọjọ́ orí-i rẹ̀ ò níí jẹ́ his days-of-age will-not permit-it.
Idiomatic: If a youth attempts to act like an elder, his age will stop him. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Seniority cannot be assumed ahead of the years that confer it.
Used when: Said to a young person overreaching into an elder's role .
Notes: Ọjọ́ orí, literally days of the head, is the standard phrase for a person's age. The proverb makes age an active agent that prevents the imposture rather than merely a fact that disqualifies it.
Literal: Bí ọmọdé bá gun òkè àgbà if a-child climbs the-hill of-elderhood ó ńláti gbọ́n he must become-wise.
Idiomatic: If a child ascends the height of maturity, he/she must become wise. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Reaching an age carries an obligation to have acquired the understanding that goes with it.
Used when: Said of someone whose years have outrun their judgment .
Notes: Owomoyela's usage note flattens it to "wisdom goes with age" , but the Yorùbá modal ó ńláti is deontic, "must," so the proverb states a duty rather than a regularity. That is a material difference and the literal gloss keeps the obligation.
Literal: Bí ọmọdé bá ńṣe ọmọdé if a-child is-behaving-as a-child àgbà a máa ṣe àgbà an-elder keeps-behaving-as an-elder.
Idiomatic: When a child is being a child, an elder must remain an elder. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Another person's bad behaviour does not release you from your own standard.
Used when: Said to an adult provoked into responding in kind by a young person .
Notes: The proverb repeats each noun as its own verb, ṣe ọmọdé and ṣe àgbà, so behaving is presented as simply being what one is, and the whole argument is carried by the parallelism. This is the constraint on elders that balances the deference proverbs; see file 14.
Literal: Bí ọmọdé bá mọ ayò if a-child knows ayò ẹyọ la ó fi pa á with-single-seeds is-how one will beat him.
Idiomatic: If a child is an adept ayò player, one defeats him with single seeds. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A precocious child is still not a match for an adult.
Used when: Said of impressive youthful skill that nonetheless falls short .
Notes: Ayò is the Yorùbá mancala board game, played with seeds in pits, and beating a strong player with single seeds means winning by fine margins rather than by force. The proverb concedes the child's skill entirely, which is what keeps it from being merely dismissive.
Literal: Ọmọdé dáwọ́tilẹ̀ a-child rests-his-hand-on-the-ground ó ní òún tó ọ̀bọ he says he equals a-monkey bó tó ọ̀bọ if he equals the-monkey ó tó gẹ̀gẹ̀ àyàa ẹ̀ does-he equal the-breadth of-its-chest?
Idiomatic: A child rests his hand on the earth and claims it is as big as a monkey "read chimpanzee"; even if the child is as big as a monkey, is its chest as big as the monkey's? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Matching someone on one measure is not matching them.
Used when: Said to someone claiming parity on the basis of a single similarity .
Notes: The child on all fours is the same shape as the ape, which is the resemblance being claimed, and the chest is the seat of strength, which is the difference being pointed out. Owomoyela's bracketed "read chimpanzee" is his own note that ọ̀bọ here covers the larger ape.
Literal: Nígbàwo since-when làpò ẹkùn-ún di ìkálá did-the-leopard-hide-bag become an-okro-picking-basket fọ́mọdé for-a-child?
Idiomatic: Since when did a tiger-hide sac become a thing a child uses to harvest okro? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Objects and offices of high standing are not for casual use by juniors.
Used when: Said when someone appropriates something well above their station .
Notes: A leopard-skin bag is a hunter's or a chief's prestige item, and okro-picking is domestic child labour, so the mismatch is total. Owomoyela translates ẹkùn as tiger, following an older English convention for the leopard that is common in West African writing.
Literal: Àṣàyá roughhousing kì í jẹ́ kí ọmọ ọ̀yà ó gbọ́n does-not let the-young-cane-rat become-wise.
Idiomatic: Roughhousing keeps the young of the cane rat from learning wisdom. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Constant play prevents the acquisition of caution.
Used when: Said of a young person too taken up with amusement to learn wariness .
Notes: The cane rat is heavily hunted, so wariness is precisely the skill its young most need, and the proverb's choice of animal is the argument. Owomoyela's note generalises to anyone who takes life as a jest .
Literal: Bí ọmọdé ò bá rí oko baba ẹlòmíràn if a-youth has-not seen another's-father's farm a ní kò sí oko baba ẹni tó tó ti baba òun he says no-one's-father's-farm equals his-father's.
Idiomatic: If a youth has never seen another person's father's farm, he says nobody's father's farm is as large as his father's. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Family pride is usually a function of limited exposure.
Used when: Said to deflate provincial boasting and to argue for sending the young out .
Notes: Also collected in file 10 for what it says about patrimony. Here the emphasis is the young person's horizon, and the proverb is a compact argument for travel as education.
Literal: Bí ojú ọmọdé ò tó ìtàn if a-youth's eyes did-not reach the-story a bá àwígbọ́ he meets what-is-told-and-heard.
Idiomatic: If a youth's eyes do not witness a story, they should be good for hearsay. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: What you did not see, you learn from those who did.
Used when: Cited to justify the authority of transmitted knowledge, and to tell a young person to listen .
Notes: Àwígbọ́ is a nominal meaning roughly "the told-and-heard," and it names oral transmission as a category of evidence in its own right. The proverb is a compact epistemology and is used to defend the standing of oral history against the claim that only eyewitness counts.
Literal: Ìgbọ̀nwọ́ the-elbow ti kékeré from smallness yọké protrudes-a-hump.
Idiomatic: The elbow develops a hump right from its youth. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: What a person will be shows early.
Used when: Said of a precocious child, and Owomoyela's note names precocity directly .
Notes: The observation is anatomical and neutral, so the proverb can be complimentary or ominous depending on what the early sign is. Owomoyela attaches an endnote to this entry .
Literal: Ọmọ àì-jọbẹ̀-rí a-child who-has-never-eaten-stew tí ńja epo sáyà who drips palm-oil onto-the-chest.
Idiomatic: A child new to eating stews: he shows himself by dripping palm-oil on his chest. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Inexperience with good fortune is visible on the person enjoying it.
Used when: Said of upstarts mishandling new wealth or new position .
Notes: Red palm oil stains conspicuously, so the evidence is public and cannot be denied, which is what makes the image effective. The proverb is applied far more often to adults than to children.
Literal: Mo dàgbà mo dàgó I have-grown-old, I have-become-a-tall-tree aré ọmọdé ò tán lójúù mi childish play has-not ended in-my-eyes.
Idiomatic: I have become old and wise, but childish play has not ceased to appeal to me. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Age does not extinguish the appetites of youth.
Used when: Said by an older person excusing an unserious pleasure, usually with self-deprecation .
Notes: The proverb is in the first person, which is uncommon in the corpus and makes it a confession rather than a rule. Dàgó is to become a tall tree, so the Yorùbá pairs growing old with growing tall, and Owomoyela's "old and wise" imports the wisdom.
Literal: Ọ̀kánjúwà àgbà a-greedy elder ní ńsọ ara ẹ̀ dèwe is-who turns himself into-a-youth.
Idiomatic: It is an avaricious elder that turns himself into a child. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: An elder who cannot govern his appetite forfeits the standing of an elder.
Used when: Said of a senior person grabbing at food, money or attention .
Notes: Owomoyela's note makes the consequence explicit: such an elder asks to be treated like a child . The proverb treats seniority as a status that can be lost through conduct, which is the same principle as entry 18 approached from the other end.
Literal: Oúnjẹ ọmọ kékeré a-small-child's food a máa wọ àgbà nínú does-enter an-elder's inside òrùka ọmọ kékeré a-small-child's ring ni kì í wọ ágbá lọ́wọ́ is-what does-not fit an-elder's hand.
Idiomatic: A youth's food can enter the stomach of an elder; it is only a youth's ring that cannot slip onto an elder's finger. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: An elder may take a junior's food but not a junior's place.
Used when: Said to mark exactly where an elder's prerogative stops .
Notes: Owomoyela's note is precise: an elder may take advantage of the youth in certain respects, but in others must respect his status . The ring is the emblem of a person's own proper measure, and the physical impossibility carries the moral limit, which is why the proverb is more effective than a rule would be.
Literal: Àgbà òṣìkà a-wicked elder ńgbin ìyà sílẹ̀ sows suffering into-the-ground de ọmọọ rẹ̀ awaiting his-children.
Idiomatic: A wicked elder sows suffering for his children. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A person's conduct sets the conditions their children will live in.
Used when: Said as a warning to someone acting badly with impunity, on the ground that the bill falls due on the next generation .
Notes: Owomoyela cross-references a related proverb beginning Àgbà tó gbin èbù ìkà . The agricultural metaphor of planting for a later harvest is exact: gbin is to plant, and the delay between planting and harvest is the delay between the act and the reckoning. This is one of the clearest Yorùbá statements of inherited consequence, and it is moral rather than mystical in its framing.
Literal: Ẹni tó bá rántí ọjọ́ whoever remembers the-days ní ńṣe ọmọ òkú pẹ̀lẹ́ is-who treats the-dead-person's-child gently ta ní jẹ́ ṣe ọmọ eégún lóore who would do the-masquerader's-child a-kindness?
Idiomatic: Those who gratefully remember past favors extend compassion to the survivors of the deceased; who would rather show compassion to the child of a masquerader? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A good person's children inherit the goodwill their parent earned.
Used when: Said when the orphans of a well-regarded person are cared for, and as an argument for behaving well while alive .
Notes: Eégún is the ancestral masquerade, and the contrast turns on the masquerader being a figure nobody has private obligations to. The proverb is the positive counterpart of entry 43: conduct deposits either debt or credit for one's children to collect.
Literal: Ọlọgbọ́n ọmọ a-wise child ní ḿmú inú-u bàbá ẹ̀ dùn is-who makes his-father's inside sweet aṣiwèrè ọmọ a-foolish child ní ḿba inú ìyá ẹ̀ jẹ́ is-who spoils his-mother's inside.
Idiomatic: A wise child gladdens the heart of his father; an imbecile of a child saddens the heart of his mother. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A child's quality registers directly on both parents.
Used when: Said in praise or reproach of a grown child .
Notes: Inú dùn and inú bàjẹ́ locate emotion in the belly, which is why the literal keeps "inside." This proverb corresponds closely to Proverbs 10:1, and given the depth of Yorùbá Christian literacy since the mid-nineteenth century the possibility of biblical naturalisation is real. Owomoyela prints it without comment on provenance. Also collected in file 10. Confidence on origin: contested.
Literal: Ọlọgbọ́n ni yó jogún ògo the-wise-one is-who will inherit glory aṣiwèrè ni yó ru ìtìjú wálé the-fool is-who will carry shame home.
Idiomatic: The wise child will inherit glory; the idiot child will bring shame home with him. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: What the child brings back to the compound is the real inheritance.
Used when: Said of children sent out to trade, to school, or to a patron .
Notes: Jogún is literally to eat an inheritance. Glory is received as a bequest, shame is carried home as a load, and the two verbs make honour a gift and disgrace a self-inflicted burden.
Literal: Ọmọ tí ò ní baba a-child who has-no father kì í jìjà ẹ̀bi does-not fight a-fight-of-guilt.
Idiomatic: A fatherless child should not engage in an unjust fight. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Without backing you cannot afford to be in the wrong.
Used when: Said as caution to anyone unprotected who is picking a quarrel .
Notes: Ìjà ẹ̀bi, a fight one is at fault in, contrasts with a fight in the right, and the proverb permits the latter to the fatherless child while forbidding the former. Owomoyela generalises to never provoking trouble without strong backers . Also in file 10.
Literal: A kì í ṣe fáàárí one does-not make a-display ẹ̀ṣẹ́ dídì of-fist-clenching sọ́mọ adẹ́tẹ̀ to-a-leper's child.
Idiomatic: One does not flaunt one's ability to make a fist in the face of a leper's child. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Do not display a capacity in front of those whose family lacks it.
Used when: Said against cruelty toward the children of the afflicted .
Notes: Leprosy destroys the fingers, so clenching a fist is precisely what the child's parent cannot do. The paired proverb is A kì í ṣe fáàárí itọ́ dídà sọ́mọ a-kú-wárápá, "One does not drool in jest in the presence of the child of an epileptic," and Owomoyela prints them adjacently with the same usage note about never mimicking an affliction . Both are directed at the child rather than the sufferer, which is the sharpest part of the rule: the shame is transmissible and so the protection must be too.
Literal: A ní ìrókò ni yó pa ọmọdé one says the-ìrókò will kill the-child ó bojú-wẹ̀hìn he glances behind-him òòjọ́ ní ńjà does-it-strike the-same-day?
Idiomatic: One curses a child that ìrókò will kill him, and he glances at his rear; does the curse take effect immediately? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: No immediate consequence does not mean no consequence.
Used when: Said of anyone treating an unpunished act as an unpunishable one .
Notes: The ìrókò is a large hardwood tree held to be inhabited by a spirit and dangerous to offend, so the curse invokes a real feared agency. Owomoyela prints a close variant with the child as the offender rather than the target: Ọmọdé bú ìrókò, ó bojú wẹ̀hìn; òòjọ́ ní ńjà?, "A child insults an ìrókò tree and glances back apprehensively; does it take revenge immediately?" The two versions distribute the fault differently and both are attested.
Literal: Ibi tí o máa sùn the-place where you will sleep lo tẹ́ ọmọ sí is-where you laid the-child.
Idiomatic: It is precisely where you will eventually have to sleep that you have laid down your child to sleep. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The trap you set for someone else is one you will lie in yourself.
Used when: Said of a transparent ruse that will rebound on the person attempting it .
Notes: The domestic image of laying a baby down on the sleeping mat is gentle and the application is not, which is the proverb's method. Owomoyela reads it as self-deception in the hope that an obvious trick will work .
Literal: Ohun tí wèré fi ńse ara ẹ̀ what the-madman does to-himself ó pọ̀ ju exceeds ohun tó fi ńṣẹ ọmọ ẹlòmíràn lọ what he does to-another-person's-child.
Idiomatic: What the imbecile does to himself is far worse than what he does to others. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The person bent on harming others damages themselves more.
Used when: Said of someone whose malice is destroying them .
Notes: Ọmọ ẹlòmíràn, another person's child, is the standard Yorùbá way of saying "somebody else" with an implication of someone's cherished dependent, and it makes the comparison sharper than a neutral "others" would.
Literal: Ọmọ onílẹ̀ the-child-of-the-owner-of-the-land á tẹ̀ ẹ́ jẹ́jẹ́ will tread it gently.
Idiomatic: The owner of the earth treads gently on it. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Those with the most right to act are the most restrained in acting.
Used when: Said in praise of powerful people who do not use their power to the limit .
Notes: Owomoyela's note is that responsible people do not always do as they can, but behave as is proper . His idiomatic line drops ọmọ, child, which the Yorùbá has, and this corpus keeps it in the literal because the standing being described is inherited.
Literal: Ẹni tó torí òtútù whoever because-of cold fi ọmọrí odó yáná uses the-pestle-head to-make-fire ò gbọdọ̀ retí a-ti-jẹyán must-not expect the-eating-of-pounded-yam.
Idiomatic: Whoever because of cold weather uses the pestle as kindling to warm him/herself must not expect to eat pounded yams. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Consuming the means of production for present comfort forfeits the product.
Used when: Said against short-term relief bought at the cost of future capacity .
Notes: Pounded yam requires a mortar and pestle, so burning the pestle ends the possibility permanently, and the proverb is exact about the mechanism rather than merely disapproving. Ọmọrí odó is the head of the pestle, and ọmọ here means the working part of an implement, one of the extended senses noted in the introduction to this file.
Literal: Ẹni tó fi irun dúdú ṣeré whoever plays with black hair yó fi funfun sin ẹniẹlẹ́ni will with white hair serve other-people.
Idiomatic: Whoever plays around with his or her black hair will serve others with his or her white hair. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A wasted youth is paid for by a labouring old age.
Used when: Said to a young person avoiding work or training .
Notes: Black hair and white hair stand for the two ages, and sin, to serve, is the verb used of a servant or dependent, so the penalty named is loss of independence in old age rather than mere poverty. The proverb is one of the most direct statements in the corpus of youth as a period of accumulation.
Literal: Àpọ́n dògí a-bachelor becomes-aged ó ṣàrò he makes his-own hearth.
Idiomatic: When a bachelor becomes old, he makes his own cooking fire. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A man who never married cooks for himself when he is too old to want to.
Used when: Owomoyela's note generalises it: one should make provisions for the future in one's youth .
Notes: The proverb assumes a domestic economy in which cooking is done by wives and daughters, and it states the consequence of remaining outside that economy without moralising about it. Read as an argument for marriage and children it is unsentimental: they are named here as old-age provision.
Literal: Ibi tí a ti ńpìtàn where one must recite-genealogy ká tó jogún before one inherits ká mọ̀ pé ogún ibẹ̀ ò kanni let-one know that the-inheritance there does-not concern-one.
Idiomatic: Where one must recite genealogies in order to establish one's claim to inheritance, one should know that one really has no claim to patrimony there. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: A right that has to be argued for at length is probably not a right.
Used when: Said to someone pressing a doubtful inheritance claim .
Notes: Pìtàn, to recite history, is the formal recitation of descent used to establish standing in a lineage, and the proverb's claim is that a genuine heir is already known to be one. This is a direct window onto Yorùbá inheritance practice, in which membership was established by recognition rather than documents. Owomoyela's note puts it as not needing to go to great lengths for a legitimate claim .
Literal: À-sìnkú-àì-jogún burying-the-dead-without-inheriting òṣì ní ńtani poverty is-what it-brings-one.
Idiomatic: Burying-the-dead-without-sharing-in-the-inheritance leads one to poverty. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Bearing the cost of an obligation without receiving its benefit ruins you.
Used when: Said of anyone doing the work of a relationship and getting none of its returns .
Notes: Funerals were a major expense borne by heirs, so the proverb describes a real financial trap rather than a metaphor: paying to bury someone whose estate goes elsewhere. Owomoyela's note softens it to having something to show for one's efforts . The compressed nominal packs the entire situation into one word.
Literal: Máà gbíyè lógún do-not place-hope on-inheritance ti ọwọ́ ẹni ní ńtóni what-is-of-one's-hand is-what suffices-one.
Idiomatic: Place not your hopes in inheritance; the product of one's hand labor is what sustains one. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: What you earn is reliable in a way what you expect to receive is not.
Used when: Said to an heir counting on a bequest, and Owomoyela's note is blunt: whoever trusts in inheritance courts disaster .
Notes: This is the sharpest anti-inheritance proverb in the collection and it sits against entries 43, 44 and 46, which all treat what parents transmit as decisive. The corpus contains both positions and neither is a misreading of the other; a proverb is selected for a situation rather than deduced from a system.
Literal: Baba-ìsìnkú the-chief-mourner ò fọmọ-ọ rẹ̀ sọfà does-not put his-child in-pawn alábàáṣe ńfọmọ-ọ rẹ̀ kówó the-helper pawns his-child for-money.
Idiomatic: The executor does not pawn his child; his helper pawns his own. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: The person actually responsible holds back while the volunteer overcommits.
Used when: Said of someone ruining themselves over a duty that was not theirs .
Notes: Pawning a child, sọfà, against a debt was a real institution, ìwọ̀fà, in which the pawn worked for the creditor until redemption, so the proverb describes an actual and drastic way of raising funeral money. The proverb's target is the officious helper, not the practice.
Literal: A sìnkú tán we have-finished burying-the-dead alugbá ò lọ́ the-calabash-beater has-not gone ó fẹ́ ṣúpó ni does-he wish to-inherit-a-widow?
Idiomatic: The funeral is over, but the calabash beater does not take his leave; does he want to inherit a wife? (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Know when your part is finished and go.
Used when: Said of anyone lingering after their function has ended .
Notes: Ṣúpó is to inherit a widow, the levirate practice by which a dead man's wife could pass to a member of his lineage, and the joke is that only a lineage member has that expectation, so the hired musician is presuming spectacularly. Owomoyela prints a parallel version with a bàtá drummer: A kúnlẹ̀ a pàgbò, alubàtá ní "ojú ò fẹ́rakù"; o fẹ́ bá wọn ṣúpó ni? and cross-references the two .
Literal: Ẹjọ́ a-fẹ́ni-lóbìnrin the-case of-one-who-takes-one's-wife là ńwí is-what one pleads a kì í wíjọ́ a-fẹ́ni-lọ́mọ one does-not plead-the-case of-one-who-marries-one's-daughter.
Idiomatic: One may complain about a person who courts one's wife, but one does not complain about a person who courts one's daughter. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Only some grievances are grievances.
Used when: Said to someone objecting to something they have no standing to object to .
Notes: The contrast is legal: taking a wife is an actionable wrong, marrying a daughter is the normal and desired outcome, and the proverb uses the pair to teach the difference between an injury and an event you dislike. Wíjọ́ is specifically to bring a case, so the domain is litigation.
Literal: À ńwá ẹni tí a ó fọmọ fún we are-seeking someone to-give the-child to olòṣì ńyọjú a-worthless-person presents-himself.
Idiomatic: We seek a person to give a child to (in marriage) and a worthless person presents himself. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: People volunteer for positions far above what they are.
Used when: Said of unsuitable suitors and, more widely, of anyone putting themselves forward for something beyond them .
Notes: Owomoyela prints a fuller variant that makes the same joke through a physical pun: A ní ká wá ẹni tó lẹ́hìn ká fọmọ fún, abuké ní òun rèé; ti gànnàkù ẹ̀hìn-in rẹ̀ là ńwí?, "One seeks a person with a prominent back as suitor for one's daughter, and the humpback presents himself; who spoke of protruding back?" His note explains that "prominent back," lẹ́hìn, is an idiom for a proud pedigree and strong backing, so the humpback has taken a metaphor literally . That pun is the whole proverb and no English version can carry it.
Literal: A kì í mú ọmọ òṣì one does-not take a-child-of-poverty lọ sí Ìlọ́rọ̀ to Ìlọ́rọ̀.
Idiomatic: One does not take a child destined for poverty to Ìlọ́rọ̀. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Placing someone in favourable surroundings does not override what they are destined for.
Used when: Said when opportunity has been given and wasted .
Notes: The proverb is built on a pun that Owomoyela footnotes: Ìlọ́rọ̀ is a real town name that also reads as ilé ọrọ̀, the house of wealth, so taking a poverty-destined child to Wealthtown is a joke about the futility of relocation . Owomoyela's usage note invokes destiny, orí, directly: a person cannot transcend their destiny. That is a substantive claim in Yorùbá thought and not merely fatalism; see the treatment of orí elsewhere in this corpus.
Literal: Kí ẹrú mọ ara ẹ̀ lẹ́rú let the-slave know himself as-a-slave kí ìwọ̀fà mọ ara ẹ̀ níwọ̀fà let the-pawn know himself as-a-pawn kí ọmọlúwàbí mọ ara ẹ̀ lẹ́rú Ọlọ́run ọba let the-well-born-person know himself as-the-servant of-God the-king.
Idiomatic: Let the slave know him/herself as a slave; let the pawn know him/herself as a pawn; let the well born person know him/herself as the child of God. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Everyone should know their station, including the highest.
Used when: Said to enforce a social hierarchy, and equally to remind the free person that they too are subordinate to something .
Notes: The Yorùbá third clause says ẹrú Ọlọ́run, slave or servant of God, and Owomoyela's idiomatic line renders it "child of God," which softens the parallelism considerably: the Yorùbá makes all three terms the same word, ẹrú, and the rhetorical point is that the free person is also somebody's slave. This corpus flags the divergence and keeps ẹrú in the literal. Ọmọlúwàbí is the central Yorùbá ethical ideal, discussed in yoruba-owe-proverbs. Confidence on the translation of the third clause: the compiler reads it differently from the published translator, and both are shown.
Literal: Ìyàwó tó na ọmọ ọbàkan the-wife who beats a-child-of-the-same-father ọ̀rọ̀ ló fẹ́ gbọ́ is-asking to-hear words.
Idiomatic: The wife who whips a relative of her husband is asking for stern rebuke. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: An in-married woman has no authority to discipline her husband's blood kin.
Used when: Said when a wife oversteps into lineage matters .
Notes: Ọmọ ọbàkan is a child of the same father, so the person struck is a full member of the patrilineage, which the wife is not; her standing in the compound is by marriage and does not extend to correcting its blood members. Owomoyela attaches an endnote here . Compare entry 66, which describes the reverse case within the marriage itself.
Literal: Òfin ni yó sọ ara ẹ̀ the-law will speak itself ìyàwó tí ńna ọmọ ìyálé the-junior-wife who beats the-senior-wife's child.
Idiomatic: The law will assert itself, "as in the case of" a junior wife flogging the child of the senior wife. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Some transgressions bring their own automatic penalty without anyone needing to impose one.
Used when: Said when a wrongdoer's punishment is a foregone conclusion .
Notes: The junior wife striking the senior wife's child inverts two hierarchies at once, seniority between co-wives and the mother's authority over her own child, which is why the consequence is treated as automatic. On the co-wife relation see file 12. Owomoyela's square brackets are his own supplied connective.
Literal: Ẹni tí yó mu ẹ̀kọ ọ̀fẹ́ whoever will drink free corn-pap yó bàá ọmọ ẹlẹ́kọ ṣeré will play-with the-pap-seller's child.
Idiomatic: The person who wishes to eat free corn pap will play with the seller's child. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Access runs through the household of the person who has what you want.
Used when: Said, usually drily, of someone cultivating a family for what it can supply .
Notes: Owomoyela prints a near-identical variant with ẹ̀kọ fòrò, steaming hot pap, in place of ọ̀fẹ́, free, and gives it a different usage note about ingratiating oneself with a benefactor; he cross-references the two . The child is the route to the parent, which is a piece of practical social knowledge stated without embarrassment.
Literal: Bí ọmọ́ bá jágbọ́n-ọn kíké if a-child masters the-trick of-crying ìyá-a rẹ̀ a jágbọ́n-ọn rírẹ̀ ẹ́ his-mother will master the-trick of-soothing him.
Idiomatic: If a child learns the trick of crying, the mother learns the trick of consoling him or her. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Every escalation is met by an adaptation on the other side.
Used when: Said of a contest in which each party keeps answering the other .
Notes: Owomoyela prints an immediately following and much harsher variant, Bí ọmọ́ bá jágbọ́n-ọn kíkú, ìyá ẹ̀ a jágbọ́n-ọn sísin, "If a child learns the trick of dying, his mother should learn the trick of burying," with the note that one should learn to meet wiles with wiles, and cross-references the pair . The escalation from crying to feigned dying and from soothing to burying is the joke, and it is very cold. Both versions turn on jágbọ́n, to master a trick, applied identically to child and mother.
Literal: Bí ọmọ́ bá yó when a-child is-full a fikùn han baba he shows the-belly to-the-father.
Idiomatic: When a child is full, he shows his stomach to his father. (Owomoyela)
Meaning: Satisfaction is displayed to the person who provided it.
Used when: Owomoyela records two uses: celebrating an accomplishment, and showing appreciation to a benefactor .
Notes: The gesture is a real one, a fed child patting a distended belly, and the proverb reads it as an act of acknowledgement rather than mere contentment. The two uses Owomoyela lists pull slightly apart, one about the self and one about the giver, and he does not choose between them.
Literal: Bí a bá rántí ọjọ́ kan ìbálé if one remembers the-day of defloration ká rántí ọjọ́ kan ìkúnlẹ̀ abiyamọ let-one remember the-day of the-kneeling of-the-nursing-mother.
Idiomatic: If one remembers the day of (the loss of) virginity, one should also remember the day of a woman's delivery. (Owomoyela, first two clauses)
Meaning: Whoever recalls the pleasure should recall the pain it produced.
Used when: Owomoyela's note: as one takes one's pleasures, one should be mindful of the pains that make them possible .
Notes: Owomoyela prints a third clause, ká rántí kan abẹ́ tí ńtani lára, which he renders explicitly; it is omitted here as it adds nothing to the sense and the two-clause form is the one in general use. Ìkúnlẹ̀ abiyamọ, the kneeling of the nursing mother, is the standing Yorùbá phrase for the posture of childbirth and it carries very heavy weight, invoked in oaths and prayers as the measure of what a mother has undergone. That resonance is entirely absent from the English.
Three observations specific to this theme.
The corpus does not agree with itself about inheritance. Entries 43, 44 and 46 treat what parents transmit as decisive, while 58 tells the heir to expect nothing and 56 says a claim that must be argued is not a claim. These are not stages of an argument; they are separate tools for separate situations, and a reader assembling them into a Yorùbá doctrine of inheritance will produce something no Yorùbá speaker holds.
The training proverbs are addressed to adults. Almost every item in the middle section instructs a parent or an elder rather than a child, and several of them, entries 12, 31 and 42 in particular, constrain the adult's behaviour rather than the child's. The genre is a manual for those doing the raising.
Destiny sits underneath several entries without being argued for. Entry 63 states outright that a child cannot be relocated out of their destiny, and entry 38 says the shape shows early. Yorùbá thought on orí, the personal destiny chosen before birth, is the framework these assume, and it coexists in the same corpus with the strong training proverbs without either side conceding. Whether that is a contradiction or a division of labour between what can and cannot be altered is a live question in the scholarship and this corpus does not settle it. Confidence: contested.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about the household, the lineage, the father's house and the obligations that follow from being born into a particular family.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs on what age and seniority are owed, what they owe back, and the limits of both.
Sourced Yorùbá proverbs about courtship, the bond between husband and wife, and the frictions and duties of the polygynous marriage itself.
Twenty Yorùbá proverbs on ogún (inheritance) and claim to patrimony, drawn largely from Owomoyela's dedicated section "On the right to one's patrimony and to property," focused on land, farm, throne, and territorial claim rather than movable wealth.
Fifty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on character, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
Forty-eight Yorùbá proverbs on the ọmọlúàbí ideal, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.