Òwe on Ọwọ́ and Ẹsẹ̀: The Working Body
Forty-nine Yorùbá proverbs on the hand and the foot, the body's two instruments of labor, presented with the original, a literal gloss, a named translation, and the situation each is spoken in.
The hand (ọwọ́) and the foot (ẹsẹ̀) are the body's working parts in Yorùbá proverb: the hand takes, gives, builds, feeds, and grooms; the foot carries a person into danger and out of it, and walks a path that cannot be undone. Neither organ appears in these proverbs as an object of admiration, the way the face does in proverbs about beauty. They appear as instruments, judged by what they accomplish or fail to accomplish, and by what happens to the person who owns them. Ọwọ́ ẹni, one's own hand, carries an extended sense throughout this set beyond the physical organ: it stands for a person's own effort, means, and resources, as against what is given, inherited, or owed by someone else. This file collects forty-nine such proverbs from Owomoyela's numbered collection, plus two further proverbs on the same subject quoted, unnumbered, in his introduction.
The proverbs are given in Owomoyela's texts and translations unless another source is named. As in owe-iwa-character, Owomoyela's parenthetical usage notes are the basis of the Used when lines; where the wording is his it is quoted.
A note on method for this file
Owomoyela prints full standard orthography with tone marks and subdots . The working text used to build this file, however, is a plain-text extraction of the printed book in which the custom embedded font's diacritics did not survive extraction cleanly: subdots on ẹ, ọ, and ṣ, and tone marks generally, dropped or garbled in the extracted characters even though the English translations and page layout extracted intact. Every Yorùbá text below has therefore been reconstructed onto that garbled extraction by the compiler of this corpus, checked against the orthographic patterns already established in yoruba-owe-proverbs and owe-iwa-character (particularly their confirmed spellings of ọwọ́, ẹsẹ̀, and the kì í negative construction), and cross-checked where possible against independent transcriptions of the same book hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Yorùbá proverbs project and against proverb citations findable in secondary circulation. Where a reconstruction could not be checked against an independent source, that is noted at the entry. No proverb below is one the compiler could not locate, in English translation with its Owomoyela entry number, in the extracted source text itself; nothing here has been invented. Confidence on the individual diacritic reconstructions: medium, in the specific sense used elsewhere in this corpus: the English translations and the entry numbers are secure, and the tone marking is the compiler's own work rather than a direct transcription of a clean printed page.
The hand that takes and the hand that gives
1. A kì í lé èkúté ilé ẹni ká fọwọ́ ṣẹ́.
Literal: A kì í lé one does-not chase èkúté ilé ẹni the-mouse of-one's-house ká fọwọ́ ṣẹ́ and break one's-hand.
Idiomatic: "One does not shoo the mouse in one's house and break one's hand."
Meaning: A person should come to no harm dealing with a minor nuisance on home ground.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be safe from hazards in one's own home"
Notes: The picture is of a swat that misses the mouse and lands on a wall or a piece of furniture instead, injuring the swatter over nothing. The proverb sets a low bar, home territory against a mouse, precisely so the standard is felt as a minimum rather than an achievement.
2. À ń gé é lọ́wọ́, ó ń bọ òrùka.
Literal: À ń gé é lọ́wọ́ they are cutting it at-the-hand [his hand is being amputated], ó ń bọ òrùka he is slipping-off a-ring.
Idiomatic: "His hand is being severed, yet he is slipping on a ring."
Meaning: A person condemned to lose a hand busies himself adorning it instead.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person has been judged undeserving of a hand; it is an affront, therefore, for him or her to adorn the fingers, an indication of heedlessness"
Notes: Amputation of the hand was a punishment for theft, which supplies the scene: a thief facing sentence and, in the moment before the blade, thinking of decoration rather than of the loss coming to him. The proverb is used of anyone attending to trivial vanity while a real catastrophe is in progress.
3. Àgbàlagbà kì í wẹ̀wọ́ tán kó ní òun ó jẹ sí.
Literal: Àgbàlagbà an-elder kì í wẹ̀wọ́ tán does-not wash-hand finish kó ní and say òun ó jẹ sí he will eat more.
Idiomatic: "An elder does not wash his hand and then decide to eat more."
Meaning: A person of standing does not reopen a matter they have already formally closed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "An elder should know his mind"
Notes: Owomoyela's own footnote explains the gesture: Yorùbá eat with the fingers, and washing the hand after a meal is the recognized sign that one is finished . The proverb depends on that gesture being a public, legible signal, which is what makes reopening the matter an embarrassment rather than a private change of mind. Compare entry 49, Àìmọ̀wọ́-wẹ̀wẹ̀, on the same hand-washing custom seen from the opposite end, a child not yet trusted to know it.
4. Ọmọdé dá wọ́ tílẹ̀, ó ní òun tó ọ̀bọ; bó tó ọ̀bọ, ó tó gẹ̀gẹ́ àyà-á rẹ̀?
Literal: Ọmọdé dá wọ́ tílẹ̀ a-child rests hand on-the-ground, ó ní òun tó ọ̀bọ he says he is-as-big-as a-monkey; bó tó ọ̀bọ even-if he is-as-big-as a-monkey, ó tó gẹ̀gẹ́ àyà-á rẹ̀? is-he as-big-as exactly its chest?
Idiomatic: "A child rests his hand on the earth and claims it is as big as a monkey; even if the child is as big as a monkey, is its chest as big as the monkey's?"
Meaning: Matching one part of a body, or of an achievement, is not matching the whole.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Equality is more than mere physical resemblance"
Notes: The child's hand is being measured against the animal's hand only, which the proverb concedes might genuinely be comparable in size; the argument turns entirely on the second clause, which shifts the comparison to the chest, a part the child never offered for measurement. It is a proverb about the dishonesty of selective comparison, made through two parts of the same working body.
5. Ọwọ́ àìdílé ní ń yọ koríko lójú ana.
Literal: Ọwọ́ àìdílé an-idle hand [a-hand without-household-duty] ní ń yọ koríko is-what removes grass-specks lójú ana from-the-eye of-one's-in-law.
Idiomatic: "Idle hands are the ones obliged to remove grass specks from their in-law's eyes."
Meaning: A person with nothing pressing of their own ends up doing small, thankless services for others.
Used when: Owomoyela glosses this among proverbs on people who take on menial tasks because they have no standing of their own to occupy them.
Notes: Àìdílé is a compound built on the negative prefix àì- over di ilé, to become a household or to have a household's weight; a hand without that weight is a hand with nothing better to do. The in-law relationship is chosen because it is a relationship requiring deference regardless of how trivial the favor asked.
6. A kì í gbẹ́ àwòrán gàgàrà ká má fi ọwọ́ ẹ tinnkan.
Literal: A kì í gbẹ́ àwòrán gàgàrà one does-not carve a-statue tall ká má fi ọwọ́ ẹ tinnkan and not rest its hand on-something.
Idiomatic: "One does not carve a tall statue without resting its hand on something."
Meaning: Nothing of any height stands without support, and the carved hand is where that support is placed.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everybody needs some support"
Notes: The observation is technical before it is moral: an unsupported carved arm, extended and unattached to anything, is structurally weak in wood and likely to break, so sculptors rest the hand against the thigh, a staff, or the body. The proverb reads a workshop necessity as a statement about dependency, which is exactly the move that makes Yorùbá figural carving relevant to Owomoyela's proverb collection at all. See also the epigraph proverb below, on the sculptural convention of representing the whole body.
7. A kì í gbé ẹran erin lérí ká máa fi ẹsẹ̀ wa ihò ìrẹ̀.
Literal: A kì í gbé ẹran erin lérí one does-not carry elephant meat on-the-head ká máa fi ẹsẹ̀ wa ihò ìrẹ̀ and keep using the-foot to-dig a-hole for-crickets.
Idiomatic: "One does not carry elephant meat on one's head and dig cricket holes with one's big toe."
Meaning: A person already carrying real abundance has no business chasing a trifle with the part of the body left free.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one is blessed with plenty, one should not keep chasing after trifles"
Notes: Elephant meat, the largest catch imaginable, sits on the head, the carrying part of the body; the foot, meanwhile, is put to work scratching after crickets, a child's snack. The proverb divides the body's labor between a serious load and a trivial one in the same breath, which is the joke.
8. A kì í rí ewé nílẹ̀ ká fọwọ́ fàmí.
Literal: A kì í rí ewé nílẹ̀ one does-not see leaves on-the-ground ká fọwọ́ fàmí and use-hand to-scoop-feces.
Idiomatic: "One does not see leaves lying about and scoop up feces with one's bare hand."
Meaning: Where a tool lies ready, using the bare hand instead is not toughness but foolishness.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Take advantage of whatever aids are available to you"
Notes: The proverb is deliberately repellent, which is the technique: it makes the case for using available means by picking the one task where refusing them is not admirable self-reliance but simple filth. Compare entry 6, where the hand needs support; here the hand needs protection, and the leaf is a primitive tool standing in for any implement that spares the bare hand a dirty task.
9. À ń fọ̀tún tẹ́ ení, à ń fòsì tú ṣòkòtò, obìnrin ní a kò bá òun gbọ́ tọmọ.
Literal: À ń fọ̀tún tẹ́ ení we are using-the-right-hand to-spread-a-mat, à ń fòsì tú ṣòkòtò we are using-the-left-hand to-remove trousers, obìnrin ní the-woman says a kò bá òun gbọ́ tọmọ we are-not helping her toward a-child.
Idiomatic: "One spreads a mat with the right hand while removing one's pants with the left hand; yet the woman complains that one is not helping her quest for a child."
Meaning: Both hands are already fully occupied with the very task the complainer says is being neglected.
Used when: Said of a person accused of not doing something they are visibly and completely engaged in doing.
Notes: Yorùbá marks a right-hand task and a left-hand task in the same clause, so the sentence itself shows both hands in use at once before the complaint even arrives; the grievance is refuted by the grammar of the proverb before its content is addressed. Owomoyela's footnote observes that the complaining woman shows "severe difficulty in reading intentions" The corpus's other proverb dividing labor between the right hand and the left, on a child's discipline, is cited at yoruba-owe-proverbs entry 30; Owomoyela records a further variant of that one, with the hands reversed, at his entry 824, not reproduced here to avoid duplicating that file's proverb.
10. Abiyamọ́ ṣọwọ́ kòtò lu ọmọ-ọ rẹ̀.
Literal: Abiyamọ́ a-nursing-mother ṣọwọ́ kòtò cups the-hand hollow lu ọmọ-ọ rẹ̀ strikes her child.
Idiomatic: "A nursing mother cups her palm to strike her child."
Meaning: Even correction delivered by an angry hand can be shaped to do less harm.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Discretion is the better part of discipline"
Notes: A cupped palm strikes with a hollow report and less force than a flat one; the mother's hand is doing two things simultaneously, punishing and limiting the punishment, and the proverb credits the shape of the hand itself with holding both intentions.
11. A-fà-tẹ́-lẹ́wọ́-fanná kì í dúró.
Literal: A-fà-tẹ́-lẹ́wọ́-fanná he-who-carries-live-coals-in-his-palm kì í dúró does-not stand-still (does-not tarry).
Idiomatic: "He-who-carries-live-coals-in-his-palm does not tarry."
Meaning: A person under real, present pressure does not stop to socialize.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person who has a pressing problem has no time for socializing"
Notes: The whole proverb is a single compound epithet built as a name, the a- agentive prefix chaining four elements into one word, a construction this file also meets in owe-iwa-character (a-bìwà-kunkun, entry 47 there). English needs the full sentence "he who carries live coals in his palm" to do the work of one Yorùbá word.
12. A fọ́wọ́ mú ajá ó lọ, à ṣì ń fi ìka méjì pè é.
Literal: A fọ́wọ́ mú ajá we grab a-dog with-hand ó lọ it escapes, à ṣì ń fi ìka méjì pè é we then use two fingers to-call it.
Idiomatic: "We grab a dog with the hands and it escapes; thereafter we beckon it with two fingers."
Meaning: A gesture too weak to hold something the first time will not recapture it the second time either.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If both hands cannot detain a dog, two fingers from a distance will not bring it back"
Notes: The proverb sets the whole hand's failed grip against the merest suggestion of a grip, two beckoning fingers, and asks the hearer to see the absurdity of expecting the weaker gesture to succeed where the stronger one already failed.
13. Àpò tí a kò fi ọwọ́ ẹni dá ṣòro-ó kì í wọ̀ ọ́ bọ̀.
Literal: Àpò tí a kò fi ọwọ́ ẹni dá a-pocket that we did-not with our-own-hand make ṣòro-ó kì í wọ̀ ọ́ bọ̀ is-difficult it-does-not enter to-dip.
Idiomatic: "A pocket one did not make with one's own hand is a difficult one to dip one's hand into."
Meaning: Reaching into resources one did not create by one's own effort is awkward and uncertain in a way reaching into one's own is not.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should keep one's hands in one's own pockets"
Notes: Ọwọ́ ẹni, one's own hand, is doing the extended work it does throughout this file: the pocket stands for any resource, and the proverb states as a fact about tailoring, that a pocket cut by another's hand fits another's hand best, what is elsewhere argued directly as a claim about self-reliance.
14. Bí a bá fi ọwọ́ kan fọmọ f'ọkọ, ọwọ́ mẹ́wàá kì í ṣeé gbà á mọ́.
Literal: Bí a bá fi ọwọ́ kan fọmọ f'ọkọ if we with one hand give-away a-daughter to-a-husband, ọwọ́ mẹ́wàá kì í ṣeé gbà á mọ́ ten hands cannot get her back.
Idiomatic: "If one gives a girl away in marriage with one hand, ten hands will not suffice to take her back."
Meaning: An act performed quickly and with one hand can require far more effort, or prove impossible, to undo.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Mistakes made casually are seldom easy to correct"
Notes: The arithmetic is deliberately lopsided: one hand commits, and ten cannot uncommit. The proverb counts hands the way another proverb might count days or cowries, using the body's own paired instrument as the unit of measure for how much effort a reversal would take.
15. Gángànràn ò ṣéé kì mọ́lẹ̀; a-gúnni-lọ́wọ́-bíi-ṣoṣoro.
Literal: Gángànràn a-sharp-object ò ṣéé kì mọ́lẹ̀ is-not-something-to grab-for; a-gúnni-lọ́wọ́-bíi-ṣoṣoro the-thing-that-pierces-one's-hand-like-a-sharp-instrument.
Idiomatic: "A sharp object is not something to grab for; [it is] a-thing-that-pierces-one's-hand-like-a-sharp-instrument."
Meaning: A dangerous object must be handled with deliberate care, not seized.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Dangerous things must be handled very carefully"
Notes: The second clause is another of the compound a- epithets this file meets repeatedly, naming the object entirely by what it does to a careless hand rather than by what it is. The hand supplies the proverb's evidence: the object's danger is defined by the wound it leaves.
16. Ìkókó ọmọ tó tọ́wọ́ bọ eérú ni yó mọ̀ bó gbóná.
Literal: Ìkókó ọmọ the-newborn child tó tọ́wọ́ bọ eérú who thrusts-hand into ashes ni yó mọ̀ bó gbóná is-who will-find-out whether it is-hot.
Idiomatic: "The newborn child who thrusts its hand into ashes will find out for itself if they are hot."
Meaning: Experience, tested by the hand directly, teaches what warning cannot.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Experience best teaches that one should avoid dangerous ventures"
Notes: The child is newborn, ọmọ tuntun, too young to have been warned about fire in any words that could take; the hand is the only instrument it has for finding out, and the proverb credits that direct contact with a certainty no instruction could supply in advance.
17. Kì í bọ́ lọ́wọ́ ẹnìkan kó bọ́ sílẹ̀; ọwọ́ ẹlòmíràn ní ḿbọ́ sí.
Literal: Kì í bọ́ lọ́wọ́ ẹnìkan it never slips out-of-hand of-one-person kó bọ́ sílẹ̀ and fall to-the-ground; ọwọ́ ẹlòmíràn ní ḿbọ́ sí it-is the-hand of-someone-else that it-falls into.
Idiomatic: "It never slips out of a person's hand and falls to the ground; it always drops into someone else's hand."
Meaning: What one loses through carelessness does not simply vanish; it passes to whoever is ready to receive it.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Other people always stand ready to appropriate whatever one carelessly lets slip through one's fingers"
Notes: The proverb denies the comforting fiction of a clean loss. Whatever falls from one hand is caught, not dropped, and the catching hand belongs to somebody with an interest already in place.
18. Ó dé ọwọ́ aláròobó ó di ìnà.
Literal: Ó dé ọwọ́ aláròobó it arrives at-the-hand of-a-retailer ó di ìnà it becomes a-thing-to-haggle-over.
Idiomatic: "When goods get into the hands of the retailer, they become objects to haggle about."
Meaning: Once a good passes into a trader's hand, its price stops being fixed and becomes a matter of negotiation.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A shopkeeper is a difficult person to obtain a good bargain from"
Notes: The hand marks the point of transition in the proverb: the same object that had one character before it reached the retailer's hand acquires a different character, contested and negotiable, the moment it does.
19. Ọwọ́ tó dílẹ̀ là ń fi lérán.
Literal: Ọwọ́ tó dílẹ̀ a-hand that has-become-idle là ń fi lérán is-what one uses to-rest-the-chin.
Idiomatic: "It is on an idle hand that one rests one's chin."
Meaning: A hand with nothing to do finds itself given over to brooding or mischief.
Used when: Owomoyela: "It is when one has nothing to do that one engages in mischief"
Notes: Dílẹ̀ here is idleness taking hold, the same root sense as àìdílé in entry 5, though the two proverbs picture idle-handedness differently: entry 5 has the idle hand pressed into someone else's small service, and this entry has it turned inward, propping up a thoughtful or sulking chin.
20. Àdàpè olè ní ń jẹ́, 'ọmọ mi ń fọ̀wọ́.'
Literal: Àdàpè olè a-euphemistic-name for-a-thief ní ń jẹ́ is 'ọmọ mi ń fọ̀wọ́' 'my child's hand is nimble.'
Idiomatic: "It is a euphemistic description of stealing to say, 'My child's hands are uncontrollably nimble.'"
Meaning: Softening the name for theft does not change what the hand in question is actually doing.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should face facts and not skirt them"
Notes: The proverb turns on a parent's euphemism, praising a child's dexterity in the very words that describe a pickpocket's skill, and holds the euphemism up as an evasion the hearer is meant to see through rather than accept.
21. Ẹni tí ó gòkè, kó fa ẹ̀gbẹ́-ẹ rẹ̀ lọ́wọ́; ẹni tó rí jẹ, kó fún ẹ̀gbẹ́-ẹ rẹ̀ jẹ.
Literal: Ẹni tí ó gòkè whoever has reached the-top, kó fa ẹ̀gbẹ́-ẹ rẹ̀ lọ́wọ́ let-him pull his companion by-the-hand; ẹni tó rí jẹ whoever has found something to-eat, kó fún ẹ̀gbẹ́-ẹ rẹ̀ jẹ let-him give his companion to-eat.
Idiomatic: "Whoever has reached the top, let him or her pull a friend by the hand; whoever has food to eat, let him or her share it with a friend."
Meaning: Success obliges the successful to reach back and bring others up with them.
Used when: Owomoyela: "If one has succeeded, one should give aid to those still struggling"
Notes: The hand here is instrumental in the most direct sense in this file: it is the literal means by which one person's advance becomes another's. Compare entry 22, where the hand at the moment of death can no longer hold anything at all; read together the two proverbs bracket a life between a hand that reaches back for others and a hand that finally holds nothing.
22. Ọjọ́ tí a bá kú, ọwọ́ ò gba okòó; ọmọ ẹni ní ń jogún ẹni.
Literal: Ọjọ́ tí a bá kú the-day that we die, ọwọ́ ò gba okòó the-hand does-not hold a-coin; ọmọ ẹni ní ń jogún ẹni one's-own children are-who inherit one.
Idiomatic: "The day one dies one's hand cannot hold a coin; one's children inherit one's property."
Meaning: Nothing that was ever in a person's hand goes with them past death.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One cannot take earthly possessions into the grave but must leave them to one's survivors"
Notes: Of every proverb in this file, this is the one where the hand's competence is stated at its absolute limit: the organ that has taken, given, built, and fed throughout a lifetime is shown at the single point where it can do none of those things.
23. Ọ̀pọ̀ èèyàn ló wù kó kọ́wọ́ bàpò, kádàrá ni ò jẹ́.
Literal: Ọ̀pọ̀ èèyàn many people ló wù would-like kó kọ́wọ́ bàpò to-dip-hand into-pocket, kádàrá ni ò jẹ́ it-is-destiny that does-not permit.
Idiomatic: "Many people would wish to dip their hands into their pockets, but destiny prevents their doing so."
Meaning: The wish to have wealth to reach for is universal; destiny decides who actually has a full pocket to reach into.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Everybody wishes to be rich, but destiny says otherwise"
Notes: The hand's gesture toward the pocket is the same gesture as in entry 13's warning to keep one's hand in one's own pocket; here the problem is not propriety but the prior question of whether there is anything there for the hand to find.
The foot on the path
24. Ẹni tí ẹ̀gún gún lẹ́sẹ̀ ní ń ṣe lákáǹlákátẹ̀lé alábẹ́rẹ́.
Literal: Ẹni tí ẹ̀gún gún lẹ́sẹ̀ one-whom a-thorn has-pierced in-the-foot ní ń ṣe lákáǹlákátẹ̀lé is-who limps alábẹ́rẹ́ to-the-owner-of-a-needle.
Idiomatic: "It is the person with a thorn in his foot who limps to the person with a needle."
Meaning: The person in need makes the approach; the remedy does not travel to find the sufferer.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The person in need of help should make some effort in his own behalf and not expect the helper to make all the necessary effort"
Notes: Lákáǹlákátẹ̀lé is a vivid ideophone for a pained, uneven limp, and the picture is exact: a foot already hurt has to carry its owner further, to the one tool that can fix it, before it can rest. The proverb makes the wounded foot do the work of seeking its own cure.
25. Ọ̀kọ̀ọ̀kan là ń yọ ẹsẹ̀ lábàtà.
Literal: Ọ̀kọ̀ọ̀kan one-by-one là ń yọ ẹsẹ̀ is-how we extract the-feet lábàtà from-a-mire.
Idiomatic: "One at a time is how one extricates one's feet from a mire."
Meaning: A problem gripping both feet is worked free one foot at a time, not both at once.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The best way to approach a problem is systematically"
Notes: Pulling both feet from mud simultaneously is exactly what a person stuck in mud cannot do, since each foot needs the other planted for leverage; the proverb states a practical fact about walking in mire and lets it stand for method generally. Owomoyela records the variant at entry 26 as using the identical logic with a different hazard.
26. Ọ̀kọ̀ọ̀kan là ń yọ ẹsẹ̀ lẹ́kù.
Literal: Ọ̀kọ̀ọ̀kan one-by-one là ń yọ ẹsẹ̀ is-how we extract the-legs lẹ́kù from-a-masquerade-costume.
Idiomatic: "One at a time is how one removes one's legs from a masquerade costume."
Meaning: The same principle as the preceding entry, in a different physical situation.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The best way to approach a problem is systematically" , marked as a variant of the mire proverb.
Notes: The ẹ̀kù is the enveloping costume of a masquerade performer, which must be worked off the legs carefully rather than kicked away, on pain of damaging a sacred object. Owomoyela prints the two proverbs as a matched pair, and the corpus preserves them as a pair here because the difference in imagery, one profane and inconvenient, one ritual and consequential, changes the register even though the point is identical.
27. Àgbàká lẹsẹ̀ ń gba ọ̀nà.
Literal: Àgbàká completely, totally lẹsẹ̀ is-how-the-foot ń gba ọ̀nà takes the-path.
Idiomatic: "It is completely that the feet take over a path."
Meaning: A road, once taken, is taken with the whole foot and without half measures.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Indulge not in half measures"
Notes: Owomoyela cross-references this to two neighboring entries built on the same àgbàká opening applied to smoke filling a forest and to other totalizing images, forming a short run of proverbs in the collection that argue for completeness by using the same intensifier on different subjects.
28. Ẹsẹ̀ kì í wúwo kí ẹlẹ́sẹ̀ má lè gbé e.
Literal: Ẹsẹ̀ kì í wúwo the-feet are-never heavy kí ẹlẹ́sẹ̀ má lè gbé e such-that their-owner cannot lift them.
Idiomatic: "The feet are never so heavy that the owner cannot lift them."
Meaning: A person's own peculiarities, however burdensome, remain within that person's own capacity to bear.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Each person must live with his or her own peculiarities"
Notes: The foot is presented as a load its owner is nonetheless equipped to carry, which is a different relationship to the body than most of the other entries here: elsewhere the hand and foot are instruments used on the world, and in this one the foot is itself the burden, carried by the very legs it belongs to.
29. Isán ḿbojú, ìtàlá ń wẹsẹ̀.
Literal: Isán nine-days ḿbojú is-washing the-face, ìtàlá thirteen-days ń wẹsẹ̀ is-washing the-feet.
Idiomatic: "Nine days wash the face, thirteen days wash the feet."
Meaning: A person is taking an absurdly long time over the smallest routine tasks.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said of a person who takes an eternity to do simple things"
Notes: The face and the feet are two ends of the body chosen for their disproportion of effort: washing either takes moments, and stretching the act to nine or thirteen days is comic precisely because both tasks are ordinarily the least remarkable a body performs in a day.
30. Iṣú wà lọ́wọ́ ẹ; ọ̀bẹ́ wà lọ́wọ́ ẹ.
Literal: Iṣú wà lọ́wọ́ ẹ the-yam is in-your-hand; ọ̀bẹ́ wà lọ́wọ́ ẹ the-knife is in-your-hand.
Idiomatic: "The yam is in your hand, and the knife is in your hand."
Meaning: Every condition required for the task is already met; nothing remains but to act.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Said to encourage one to do what he or she has to do without further delay, especially when all requisite conditions have been met"
Notes: Both hands are named and both are already full of what is needed, so the proverb leaves no room for the excuse of missing means; whatever now happens, or fails to happen, is a matter of will rather than resources.
31. Ìyáwọ́, ìyásẹ̀ l'ajá fi ń pa ehoro; wàrà-wàrà l'ẹkùn ń gùn.
Literal: Ìyáwọ́ nimbleness-of-hand, ìyásẹ̀ nimbleness-of-foot l'ajá fi ń pa ehoro is-what the-dog uses to-kill a-rabbit; wàrà-wàrà swiftly-swiftly l'ẹkùn ń gùn is-how the-leopard mounts (attacks).
Idiomatic: "Nimble hands and nimble feet make it possible for a dog to kill a rabbit; the leopard attacks its prey with lightning speed."
Meaning: Speed and coordination of the whole working body, not size or strength, is what lands the catch.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One should be brisk about what one has to do"
Notes: A dog is a modest hunter set beside a leopard, and the proverb pairs them deliberately: the dog's advantage is not power but ìyáwọ́ and ìyásẹ̀, compressed nouns naming the readiness of hand and foot together, a coordinated fitness of the whole body rather than any one part.
32. Ẹsẹ̀ tí yó bù, pẹ̀lẹ́ ò ràn án.
Literal: Ẹsẹ̀ tí yó bù a-foot that will fester, pẹ̀lẹ́ ò ràn án "gently" does-not help it.
Idiomatic: "A gashed foot that will fester is not helped by 'Easy does it!'"
Meaning: Sympathetic words do nothing for an injury that requires actual treatment.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Mere expression of sympathy is of little use to a person in desperate straits"
Notes: Pẹ̀lẹ́ is the standard Yorùbá commiseration offered to anyone in minor difficulty, spoken constantly and almost reflexively; the proverb takes that word and states flatly that it has no medical effect on a wound already set on a bad course, which is a harder claim than it first appears, since it argues against the adequacy of the very courtesy the culture requires.
33. Àtẹ̀gbé lẹsẹ̀ ń tẹ ọ̀nà.
Literal: Àtẹ̀gbé stepping-without-consequence lẹsẹ̀ ń tẹ ọ̀nà is-how the-foot treads the-path.
Idiomatic: "Stepping-upon-without-repercussion is the way the foot steps on the path."
Meaning: The path bears every footstep and answers none of them.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The path has no recourse against the foot that steps on it"
Notes: Àtẹ̀gbé is a single compressed nominal built on the verb tẹ̀, to tread, plus gbé, to carry or bear, naming the entire relationship in one word: treading that is simply carried, absorbed, without any return. Compare the next two entries, printed by Owomoyela as neighbors and built on the same root.
34. Àtẹ́ lẹsẹ̀ àwẹ̀nù tó dojú ara-a rẹ̀ délẹ̀.
Literal: Àtẹ́ lẹsẹ̀ àwẹ̀nù the-washed-in-vain sole tó dojú ara-a rẹ̀ délẹ̀ that turns its own face down-to-the-ground.
Idiomatic: "The washed-in-vain sole sets its face down on the ground."
Meaning: Something cleaned only to be immediately soiled again gives up the pretense and faces its fate.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Avoid inconsistencies or senseless efforts"
Notes: A sole washed and then set straight back on bare earth is dirty again within a step, which makes the washing pointless labor; the proverb personifies the sole as resigned to that outcome, turning to face the ground it knows it will touch. It is a proverb against effort spent on an outcome the effort cannot actually secure.
35. Àtẹ́ lẹsẹ̀ ní ń jẹ̀gbin ọ̀nà.
Literal: Àtẹ́ lẹsẹ̀ the sole ní ń jẹ̀gbin ọ̀nà is-what eats the-filth of-the-path.
Idiomatic: "It is the sole that eats the filth on the path."
Meaning: The part of the body that does the walking absorbs the walking's cost.
Used when: Owomoyela glosses this and the preceding entry together: "One's responsibilities often expose one to unwarranted abuse"
Notes: Jẹ, to eat, is used here as it is used of absorbing loss or harm elsewhere in Yorùbá idiom (compare jẹ ìyà, to suffer). The sole is singled out among the body's parts as the one that takes on the dirt so the rest of the body, and the errand it was walking for, can proceed clean.
36. A kì í fẹsẹ̀ kan bọ odò omi fà á; bí a bá wá ti méjèèjì bọ ń kọ?
Literal: A kì í fẹsẹ̀ kan bọ odò omi fà á one does-not dip one foot into-a-river's water and-have-it-tug; bí a bá wá ti méjèèjì bọ ń kọ? what-if we had-dipped both in?
Idiomatic: "One dips one leg into the stream and the water tugs at it; what if one had dipped both legs in it?"
Meaning: A small exposure already causes trouble; a full exposure to the same risk would be far worse.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Repercussions should not be disproportionate to the act"
Notes: The proverb reasons by a kind of proportion: one foot in the current is already enough to feel the water's pull, so the image invites the hearer to scale that feeling up rather than dismiss it, which is what makes it useful as a caution against escalation.
37. Ìbínú ò mọ̀ pé olúwa rẹ̀ ò lẹ́sẹ̀ ńlẹ̀.
Literal: Ìbínú ò mọ̀ anger does-not know pé olúwa rẹ̀ ò lẹ́sẹ̀ ńlẹ̀ that its-owner has-no legs on-the-ground.
Idiomatic: "Anger does not know that its owner has no legs to stand on."
Meaning: Rage acts as though its owner had a secure footing to act from, when the owner's actual position may be quite unstable.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Anger does not know prudence"
Notes: The idiom l'ẹ́sẹ̀ nílẹ̀, to have feet on the ground, means to have standing or footing, literal and social at once; the proverb's force is that anger is blind to precisely the kind of information the feet, if consulted, would supply.
38. Ìkẹ́ kì í kẹ́ ejò lẹ́sẹ̀.
Literal: Ìkẹ́ kì í kẹ́ a-snare never catches ejò lẹ́sẹ̀ a-snake in-the-leg.
Idiomatic: "A snare never catches a snake in the leg."
Meaning: A trap built to catch by the leg cannot catch a creature that has none.
Used when: Owomoyela's usage note reads that the proverb states one will remain invulnerable to a particular danger.
Notes: The proverb depends on the hearer knowing what the whole set otherwise assumes throughout, that ẹsẹ̀ is the ordinary site of vulnerability, the part of the body a snare, a thorn, or a mire is built or happens to catch. Naming the one common creature without legs turns that assumption into a small, precise joke about categorical safety.
39. Àlùsí ẹsẹ̀ tí ń fa koríko wọlú.
Literal: Àlùsí ẹsẹ̀ disaster-causing legs tí ń fa koríko wọlú that drag grass into-town.
Idiomatic: "Disaster-causing legs [that] drag weeds into town."
Meaning: A person who brings ruin on others is like a pair of legs that track destructive weeds from the bush into the settled town.
Used when: Owomoyela: "A person who will bring disaster on others behaves like the wayward foot that drags weeds into town"
Notes: The image works by displacement: the legs are blamed rather than the walker, which is the proverb's way of treating destructive behavior as something that clings to a person's own steps and follows them home, uninvited, from wherever they have been.
40. Bùtù-bútú ọ̀nà Ìjẹ̀ṣà l'ọmọdé ń fi ṣeré; bí kò kọ́ ọmọ ní rírìn ẹsẹ̀, a kọ́ ọmọ ní yíyan.
Literal: Bùtù-bútú ọ̀nà Ìjẹ̀ṣà the-loose-sand of-the-road to-Ìjẹ̀ṣà l'ọmọdé ń fi ṣeré is-what the-child plays-in; bí kò kọ́ ọmọ ní rírìn ẹsẹ̀ if it does-not teach the-child to-walk, a kọ́ ọmọ ní yíyan it teaches the-child to-stride.
Idiomatic: "It is in the fine sand on the road to Ilesa that the child is playing; if it does not teach the child how to walk, it will teach him how to stride."
Meaning: Play that looks aimless is still teaching the feet their competence.
Used when: Owomoyela glosses this as an observation that no encounter, even a child's play, leaves a person entirely unchanged.
Notes: The proverb treats the loose sand itself as a kind of teacher, an environment that trains the foot whether or not anyone intends instruction, which fits this file's general treatment of the foot as the organ that learns by contact rather than by being told.
41. A ò mọ̀ ibi orí ń bá ẹsẹ̀ rẹ̀.
Literal: A ò mọ̀ ibi we do-not know the-place orí ń bá ẹsẹ̀ rẹ̀ orí is-accompanying its feet.
Idiomatic: "No one knows where the head will accompany the feet."
Meaning: No one can foresee where destiny, riding on the feet that carry it forward, will actually take a person.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The future is hidden from us"
Notes: Owomoyela's own footnote is worth quoting at length, because it makes explicit a distinction this whole file depends on: "Orí in this instance is again not the physiological head but the repository of a person's destiny. The proverb, despite its wording, actually means that no one knows where orí will guide or conduct the feet. It can, of course, also be used to suggest that although orí directs one's destiny, it is the feet that do the walking, and they may conduct orí wherever it suits them" On that second reading the proverb makes the feet, not the destiny riding on them, the effective agent, which is a striking reversal for a culture in which orí is ordinarily the more authoritative term. The same proverb, in a slightly different phrasing, is quoted by Owomoyela's introduction from the Yorùbá art scholar Rowland Abiodun; see the epigraph note below.
The hand and foot as the whole working body
42. Omi ẹ̀wà yanrìn gbẹrẹrẹ, bẹ́ẹ̀ ni omi ò lọ́wọ́, omi ò lẹ́sẹ̀.
Literal: Omi ẹ̀wà yanrìn gbẹrẹrẹ water drags sand about profusely, bẹ́ẹ̀ ni omi ò lọ́wọ́, omi ò lẹ́sẹ̀ and-yet water has-no hand, water has-no foot.
Idiomatic: "Water drags the sand about, and yet water lacks hands and lacks legs."
Meaning: Great effect does not require the ordinary instruments of effort.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One may not have a great deal but can nevertheless perform wonders"
Notes: This is the one proverb in the whole file that names both ọwọ́ and ẹsẹ̀ together only to declare them absent, and by that absence it defines, negatively, everything the rest of this set has been crediting the hand and the foot with doing: moving material, gripping, carrying, working. Water is offered as proof that the underlying capacity, not the named organ, is what actually matters.
43. Oòrùn ò kan àtàrí, ọwọ́ ò dá.
Literal: Oòrùn ò kan àtàrí the-sun has-not touched the-crown-of-the-head [is-not-yet directly overhead], ọwọ́ ò dá the-hand does-not cease.
Idiomatic: "The sun has not risen directly above the head; working hands cannot cease their toil."
Meaning: Until the working day is over by its own natural clock, the hand has no license to stop.
Used when: Owomoyela: "The day is for working"
Notes: The sun overhead at noon is the traditional marker of the working day's midpoint; the proverb ties the hand's activity directly to that solar clock rather than to the worker's own wish to rest, which is what gives the line its slightly severe, taskmaster's tone.
44. Ọjúmọ́ kì í mọ́ kí ọwọ́ má yùn-ún ẹnu.
Literal: Ọjúmọ́ kì í mọ́ day never breaks kí ọwọ́ má yùn-ún ẹnu without the-hand making its-trip to-the-mouth.
Idiomatic: "Never a day dawns that the hand does not make a trip to the mouth."
Meaning: Some daily needs of the body cannot be postponed or excused, whatever else is happening.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Certain obligations are unavoidable"
Notes: The hand-to-mouth motion of eating is the most literally recurring gesture of the working body in this set, performed without exception every day a person lives, which is why it is chosen as the image for an obligation that admits no excuse.
45. Ebi ò jẹ́ ká pa ọwọ́ mọ́; ebi ṣẹnú papala.
Literal: Ebi ò jẹ́ hunger does-not allow ká pa ọwọ́ mọ́ that we fold the-hand closed; ebi ṣẹnú papala hunger makes-the-mouth [cheeks] shrink.
Idiomatic: "Hunger keeps one from folding one's hands; hunger causes the mouth [or cheeks] to shrink."
Meaning: Need itself forces the hand back into motion and shows its cost on the body when the hand goes idle anyway.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One must work in order to eat"
Notes: Pa ọwọ́ mọ́, to fold or close the hand, is the standing Yorùbá idiom for idleness, the same gesture criticized in entry 19's idle hand resting a chin; hunger here is not a threat spoken by someone else but a physical fact that makes the folded hand impossible to sustain.
46. Máà gbíyè lógún; ti ọwọ́ ẹni ní ń tóni.
Literal: Máà gbíyè lógún do-not place-hope in-inheritance; ti ọwọ́ ẹni that-of one's-own-hand ní ń tóni is-what suffices-one.
Idiomatic: "Do not rely on inheritance; the product of one's hand labor is what sustains one."
Meaning: What a person's own hand produces is dependable in a way an expected inheritance is not.
Used when: Owomoyela: "Whoever trusts in inheritance courts disaster"
Notes: Gbíyè means to place hope or confidence in something. The proverb sets the hand, an organ under one's own control, directly against inheritance, an outcome entirely under other people's control, and resolves the comparison in the hand's favor without qualification.
47. Ọwọ́ ẹni ni yó yòó ni.
Literal: Ọwọ́ ẹni one's-own hand ni yó yòó ni is-what will satisfy one.
Idiomatic: "One's hands are what feed one to satiation."
Meaning: A person's own labor, not another's charity, is what actually fills them.
Used when: Owomoyela's usage note reads: "Your hands are your best resources"
Notes: Yòó, to satisfy or fill to satiety, sets a higher bar than merely surviving; the claim is not that one's own hand keeps a person alive but that it is the hand, specifically, that brings full satisfaction, a stronger and more pointed claim than the more general entry 46.
48. Ọwọ́ ní ń tún ara ṣe.
Literal: Ọwọ́ the-hands ní ń tún ara ṣe are-what remake/groom the-body.
Idiomatic: "The hands are the agents for grooming the body."
Meaning: A person's own hands are responsible for that person's own presentable condition.
Used when: Owomoyela: "One's well-being is in one's hands"
Notes: Tún ... ṣe is to redo or set right, the same construction met in owe-iwa-character entry 44 (ọwọ́ ẹni la fi ń tú ìwà ara ẹni ṣe, "one's own hands are what one uses to remake one's own character"), where the object being remade is character rather than the physical body. Read together, the two proverbs make the hand responsible for both the outer grooming and the inner state, using the identical verb.
49. Àìmọ̀wọ́-wẹ̀wẹ̀ ni àìbágbà-jẹ; ọmọ tó mọ̀wọ́-wẹ̀wẹ̀ á bágbà jẹ.
Literal: Àìmọ̀wọ́-wẹ̀wẹ̀ not-knowing-how-to-wash-one's-hands ni àìbágbà-jẹ is not-eating-with-elders; ọmọ tó mọ̀wọ́-wẹ̀wẹ̀ a-child who knows-how-to-wash-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."
Meaning: Mastery of the small physical courtesy of clean hands is what admits a young person to the elders' table.
Used when: Owomoyela: "To qualify to live in society, one must learn the social graces"
Notes: Both halves of the proverb are built as compressed nominals on àì-/mọ̀-wẹ̀wẹ̀, not-knowing/knowing how to wash, a construction met throughout Owomoyela's collection for stating a condition and its consequence as a single equation rather than as cause and effect. Compare entry 3, where an elder's own hand-washing gesture signals that a meal is finished; here the same gesture, competently performed, is the price of admission to the meal in the first place.
Two proverbs on the whole figure, quoted by Owomoyela's introduction
Owomoyela's introduction, discussing why Yorùbá proverb-thought and Yorùbá figural sculpture share a logic, quotes two proverbs supplied by the Yorùbá art historian Rowland Abiodun that are not part of the numbered collection proper but bear directly on this file's subject and are recorded here for that reason .
Kí ojú ó má rí ibi, ẹsẹ̀ ni oògùn-un rẹ̀.
Literal: Kí ojú ó má rí ibi so-that the-eye may-not see evil, ẹsẹ̀ ni oògùn-un rẹ̀ the-legs are its medicine.
Idiomatic: "For the eyes to see no evil, the legs are the medicine." Rendering as printed by Owomoyela, quoting Abiodun .
Meaning: The legs bear the responsibility of carrying the eyes, and their owner, away from places where evil might be seen.
Notes: Owomoyela reports Abiodun's own gloss: "medicine" here means something like "talisman," and the saying credits the legs with a protective, almost apotropaic function that in other contexts would be assigned to a charm. Abiodun connects the proverb to a documented convention in Yorùbá figural sculpture, that the human figure is carved whole, torso, hands, legs, and feet included, rather than as a bust, because all these parts are held to be indispensable "to the integrity, and the fortunes, of the person represented" On Abiodun's reading, reported by Owomoyela, this is also why Yorùbá sculptural proportion is metaphorical rather than naturalistic: the head, roughly a seventh of the body in life, is carved as much as a third of the figure's total height, sized by importance rather than by anatomy. The companion proverb below, on orí and the feet, is offered by Owomoyela as an echo of this one.
Kò sí ẹni tó mọ ibi tí orí ń bá ẹsẹ̀ rẹ̀ rìn.
Literal: Kò sí ẹni there-is-no person tó mọ ibi who knows the-place tí orí ń bá ẹsẹ̀ rẹ̀ rìn where orí walks along-with its feet.
Idiomatic: "There is no person who knows where the head will accompany the legs." Rendering as printed by Owomoyela .
Meaning: No one can know in advance where a person's destiny, carried by the feet, will actually lead.
Notes: This is a variant phrasing of entry 41 above, A ò mọ̀ ibi orí ń bá ẹsẹ̀ rẹ̀, which Owomoyela also prints as a separately numbered proverb in the body of the collection with its own footnote on the double sense of orí directing the feet, or the feet in practice conducting orí wherever suits them. That the same claim appears both inside Owomoyela's numbered corpus and in his introduction's discussion of sculpture is itself evidence of how central the partnership of orí and ẹsẹ̀ is to Yorùbá thought about the person as a whole, working body.
Source:
Reading this set
The hand and the foot are judged by function, not form. Nothing here praises a hand or a foot for its shape or beauty, a marked contrast with proverbs on the face and on beauty generally. What matters is what the organ does: whether it feeds, builds, harms, supports, or fails to move when it should.
The two organs divide the body's labor along a clear line, and the exceptions to that line are notable. The hand generally acts outward on the world: taking, giving, building, feeding, striking, adorning, stealing. The foot generally moves the body through the world and absorbs what the world does to it in return: mire, thorns, filth, a river's current, a snare. Entries 31 and 42, the dog's coordinated hunt and water's handless, footless power, are the entries that treat hand and foot together as a single working capacity rather than as two separate instruments with two separate jobs, and entry 41, on orí and the feet, is the one place the set steps back from the body's mechanics to ask what, or who, is actually in charge of all this motion.
Several proverbs argue against half measures using the body's own parts. Entries 25, 26, and 27 (extracting feet from a mire, from a masquerade costume, taking a path completely) all use the working body to argue that partial effort is not real effort, and Owomoyela's own cross-references show this as a recognizable small cluster in his collection, proverbs built on a shared àgbàká, "completely," intensifier applied to different vehicles.
"One's own hand" is this file's closest equivalent to a moral center. Ọwọ́ ẹni recurs, in different grammatical positions, as the thing that must make a pocket before the pocket can be trusted (13), the thing that must not be relied on to be inherited (46), the thing that alone satisfies (47), and the thing that grooms both the outer body (48) and, in the parallel proverb already recorded in owe-iwa-character, the inner character. Set beside the corpus's other proverb on the same construction, Ọwọ́ ẹni la fi ń tú ìwà ara ẹni ṣe in owe-iwa-character entry 44, this file's hand proverbs read as that same claim worked out at the level of the physical, working body rather than of character: what a person is, and what a person has, both come back to what that person's own hand actually does.